Cactus

Loving someone who doesn't love you back is like hugging a cactus....the tighter you hold on, the more it hurts.


I heard/saw this quote the other day and I found it to be an excellent metaphor for how I've been feeling lately. There are a lot of people who, at one point in my life, I thought were incredibly important. As time goes on, however, I feel them slipping away and it's been eating me up. It's like as a child when I would sit at the edge of the beach where the water just barely came up to shore. I would pull up handfuls of wet sand and watch as it slid through my fingers. I feel like almost every person I have ever loved is wet sand. I can't hold on and I'm giving up trying. I'm coming to peace with the fact that just because I love someone doesn't mean they will love me back; that I am nowhere near as cute and charming as I'd like to be. The less I care, the less it hurts. I don't want to hug a cactus anymore.

Now, I don't know if this "not caring" is a Godly thing or not... I don't know if you can love someone from a distance to avoid being hurt, if you can just stop caring altogether, or if He would tell me to keep loving them even though it is painful.

Then there are the people who I think still love me but then find out it's only a mask they've put on, that they actually think/say terrible things about me, but not TO me. I'd rather people were honest. It might hurt initially to hear what they actually think of me, but it would be better than time and time again hearing from someone else what's been said. Like ripping off the band-aid- very painful, but that pain is brief. Pulling it off slowly pulls the skin and hair individually and you feel each and every one. Eventually I know I will let go of these people too, but I desperately want to hold on to anyone who is still in my life because there are so few left. Yet I know that doing so only hurts me...it benefits no one.



The following are lyrics to a song by Kimya Dawson, It is a beautiful, sweet and somewhat silly song. But at least for me it has a deep meaning. I'm working on not always wishing I was someone else.....


"Tree Hugger"

The flower said, "I wish I was a tree"
The tree said, "I wish I could be
A different kind of tree"
The cat wished that it was a bee
The turtle wished that it could fly
Really high into the sky
Over rooftops and then dive
Deep into the sea

And in the sea there is a fish
A fish that has a secret wish
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it
And in the sea there is a fish
A fish that has a secret wish
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it

And the flower
Would be its offering
Of love to the desert
And the desert
So dry and lonely
That the creatures all
Appreciate the effort

Et le jackalope a dit
"Je voudrais être un yeti
Pour voler dans la nuit
Et m'en aller loin d'ici"
Mais le yeti a dit
"Je voudrais être un monstre marin
Pour pouvoir rentrer dans la mer
De tous les requins"

And the rattlesnake said
"I wish I had hands so
I could hug you like a man"
And then the cactus said
"Don't you understand
My skin is covered with sharp spikes
That'll stab you like a thousand knives.
A hug would be nice
But hug my flower with your eyes"

The flower said, "I wish I was a tree"
The tree said, "I wish I could be
A different kind of tree"
The cat wished that it was a bee
The turtle wished that it could fly
Really high into the sky
Over rooftops and then dive
Deep into the sea

And in the sea there is a fish
A fish that has a secret wish
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it
And in the sea there is a fish
A fish that has a secret wish
A wish to be a big cactus
With a pink flower on it

And the flower
Would be its offering
Of love to the desert
And the desert
So dry and lonely
That the creatures all
Appreciate the effort