{"id":31629,"date":"2020-04-11T01:56:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T06:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=31629"},"modified":"2020-04-12T21:29:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T02:29:01","slug":"existential-crisis-makes-me-ask-can-i-ever-trust-you-to-love-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=31629","title":{"rendered":"Existential crisis makes me ask: Can I ever trust you to love me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I had my first existential crisis long before I knew what the words meant.<\/p>\n

I was a 5-year-old in kindergarten. I remember being alone at the front of our house on Holly Hill Drive in Atlanta. Something in my little brain was trying to figure out my place in the world.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you why. I doubt normal 5-year-olds have such thoughts, but I seriously pondered who I was and whether I mattered. The questions hung heavy on my little heart, because I desperately needed to matter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Suddenly, I had an answer that somehow made sense to me. I was 5 years old \u2014 and there were five people in my family \u2014 so that coincidence had to mean something. I must be important.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of my life, I\u2019ve experienced one crisis of this sort after another. The specific questions change, but they all mean the same thing.<\/p>\n

Do I matter? Do I matter to you? Do I belong with you? Are you my home? Can I trust you to love me?<\/em><\/p>\n

I never felt secure as a child. I understand that now, but I didn’t know enough about what normal love and normal family life felt like to know that the chaos I experienced wasn’t right.<\/p>\n

I started asking those questions early, unconsciously at first and then with more and more conscious understanding. At times, I thought I had found security in the answers, but I’ve somehow let anything good slip away from me.<\/p>\n

So I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. I can’t find my way home again.<\/em><\/p>\n

I still want to feel important. I still need to feel as though I have meaning and purpose. I’ve come to call these moments my times of existential crisis because an existential crisis is defined as a time when a person questions whether his life has meaning and purpose and value.<\/p>\n

I need to feel as though I’m the best at something which I love. I’m not even certain it’s emotionally healthy to want this, but when I feel this emptiness at such times, I just want something to fill it. I want — I need<\/em> — to be able to say to you, “I have value because I’m the best at this — and that matters to you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m good at a lot of things. I\u2019m a good writer. I’m a pretty decent photographer. I’m competent and I can charm my way to getting things done in business settings. I’m smart. I think deeply and connect ideas in original ways. I’m just on the edge of being a good filmmaker. I could come up with a dozen similar things.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t see myself as the best at any of those things. I don’t feel as though these things are great enough for them to be the special offering I want to make to a woman I love — to be able to bring them to her and say, “This is for you. I made them for you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

And that lack of having one superlative to offer as a gift — one which would matter to the sort of woman I would love — is causing an existential crisis for me. If I don’t have something about me which is deeply meaningful and desirable — to the specific sort of woman I want — then I have no purpose. I feel as though I have no value. No meaning.<\/p>\n

I have a dream. A fantasy, really. It’s the same one which I’ve had since I was a child.<\/p>\n

I want someone to love me just for being myself. I want someone to be so moved by my heart and my mind that she loves me for who I am.<\/p>\n

I want someone who is capable of allowing her heart to be completely changed by my love — someone who not only can’t live without what I offer, but who desperately wants to be a better and more loving person simply because my love makes her feel something so powerful that all her defenses come down.<\/p>\n

I would like to be the world’s best writer. At times, I can be really good, but I’ll never be the best.<\/p>\n

I would like to be the world’s best photographer. There are times when I make photos that really move my heart and make me happy, but there will always be photographers with more talent and more experience and more dedication to the craft than I have.<\/p>\n

I would like to be the world’s best at a lot of things — but I’m not sure whether that’s because I truly love those things or it’s because I want to buy someone’s love by impressing her. I don’t like asking that question. It makes me uncomfortable, because that’s not the sort of love that would ever last.<\/p>\n

The only thing that I’m truly great at is being myself.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to even define what that is. I can be pretty great at understanding people. I can see into minds and hearts in ways that I don’t even understand. I know where people are hiding and I usually know why. I can see into the dark sides of people’s hearts and minds — and I can still love them even though I know the ugliness they hide.<\/p>\n

Those are the sorts of things I’m pretty great at, but that doesn’t sound like something that’s going to make a great woman — who’s also greatly flawed — love me. And that fear leaves me with these same old existential questions.<\/p>\n

Do I matter? Do I matter to you? Do I belong with you? Are you my home? Can I trust you to love me?<\/em><\/p>\n

So far, the answers to all those questions have been a quiet but resounding no. I don’t matter to someone. There’s no one with whom I belong. There’s no one who is my home. And there’s no one I can trust.<\/p>\n

I’ve been looking for a way to answer these questions all my life — and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. Or maybe who I’m looking for.<\/p>\n

And so I remain in existential limbo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had my first existential crisis long before I knew what the words meant. I was a 5-year-old in kindergarten. I remember being alone at the front of our house on Holly Hill Drive in Atlanta. Something in my little brain was trying to figure out my place in the world. I can\u2019t tell you Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-8e9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31629"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31644,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31629\/revisions\/31644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}