Heartless

Sometimes, I wonder just how badly I'm damaged inside.

Sometimes, I wonder if I'll cry the next time I lose someone I love or the next time someone walks out of my life.

That's not happened in such awhile. I've hurt people, I've left people, people have left me, I've broken up with people, I've crushed people. I do truly feel bad. But it doesn't hurt me emotionally inside. I can disengage from people in such a way that seeing them go, though sad, does not crush me. I've learned to not hold strings with people, because in the end, they just leave anyway.

It's a defense mechanism. It's how I protect my heart and my sanity. The few who I have let in crushed me when we parted ways. I can still remember the gut wrenching sobs that were torn from my body. I remember every last moment we had. And I remember saying goodbye.

I remember all of that, and yet here and now, if people left my life, I feel as though it wouldn't make much of a difference at all. I love my friends. Don't get me wrong. I would miss them if one of us left. But I wouldn't miss them enough to the point where my life stopped the day one of us left. Life must go on, you know?

Does that make me heartless? I don't know. All I know is that I do love with my whole heart, I just don't let the grief consume me. I've learned not to. I've learned that people inevitably part ways throughout the course of life. It doesn't kill me.

At least it hasn't lately.

I have a strange urge to know if I'm still that heartless monster. I have an urge to know if someone that I loved with my whole heart (excluding family members) left me, or I them, would it hurt me? Would I cry endlessly for days?

I really honestly ponder this because of my boyfriend. I have broken up with people before, I have rejected people before, I myself have had both things happen as well. But I wasn't attached to those people enough and not in the same way. I've seen grown men cry, where I could not shed a tear. Is that still me?

I hate to think of us breaking up, but I have to wonder...will it hurt if and when it happens? Will I cry in my room for days? Will I refuse to set foot outside or even out of bed?

Even imagining it, it sounds ridiculous to me. I know myself, and that doesn't sound like me. I love with my whole heart, but at the end of the day, it's just not something I do. I don't get so emotionally involved with someone to where I am vulnerable. I don't cry after people leaving me or I them. I don't. I can't really picture that changing about myself.

But maybe it's already too late...maybe time will only tell...maybe...