This heart is closed for business

I think the last relationship has done me in. 

I’m not interested in starting over. I’m not interested in meeting someone new and getting to know them and doing the small talk and that let’s share our life stories. I’m not interested in sharing information I shouldn’t have to because why does it matter - my “body count” for instance. I’m 55 and I’ve been single for almost 20 years.

I open myself up and have forever in that I’ve been open to love and relationships and other people. I am empathetic and a sharer and hopeful of reciprocal emotions. But now, after years of protecting myself and then opening up again and again, I’ve closed up, built layers of walls around my heart. Hope is hanging out on the other side. I’m not entirely sure I’ll let it back in.

The love bombing, hope and sharing, the allowing myself to be vulnerable, agreeing to answer questions I’m not comfortable with in the belief and hope (that word again) and trust in someone else finally has taken its toll. I’m tired of paying the fees.

It’s not just the last relationship of course but the years and years of relationships I believed in, believed they were worth trusting for, only to have my heart, my feelings, my trust stomped on.

This doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind, but ugh.

I met a homelass man today. His name is Mike. He is almost 80. I don’t know his entire story. I don’t know how he got there, though I know it has been many many uyears, perhaps decades and that he is not trying to get out of his situation. He has decided that this is how he will live, and will look for the kindness of others - for food, for a place to stay, for his prescriptions and he will hitchhike the country, moving from town to town until he gets arrested or annoyed by the people being annoyed with him or tired of someone stealing from him or just tired of the general location. He asked me to cut his toenailes in front of a restaurant where he was sleeping on a bench outside. I declined, because well, I’m not really equipped for that. I really woudn’t know how to cut someone else’s toenails, but also it’s definitely not appropriate in front of a restaurant. I did try to reach my nail guy, whose salon is across the street - I know he would have cut them, but then I remembered he is out of the country. Another woman and I used our resources to try to help the man, who wasn’t interested in a shelter or its rules. He wasn’t interested in a meal or a drink that several people offered him. He wanted a cheap hotel - they don’t exist in Southwest Florida - or better yet, someone to take him into their home. In this day and age, that’s not happening either. We did what we could. The other woman and her husband picked up his prescription. The owner of the restaurant left an envelope with cash on the bench for him. The loca lfood pantry director sent the chairwoman over to talk to him. I called the homeless shelter and coordinated. I talked to the police when they came. He wasn’t arrested - there’s no law against being homeless. He was told that there was a park nearby that might be more comfortable and no one would bother him there. He ended up pushing his shopping cart that direction.

My point of this rambling is that I’m not complaining about my life. There are many people in it who love me, and maybe I don’t get to have a love of my life for the rest of my life and I should be OK with that. Maybe. And maybe I should just share my love in other ways and protect my heart from those who would hurt it, whether on purpose or not.