Exciting Times

by Naoise Dolan

The richer I got, the harder it would be for anyone to force me to do anything.

That was what we did. We were the sum of the routines we’d built around each other.

I never knew what to do when someone had obviously asked me a question to include me in the conversation. How much could I say in response before I was abusing their generosity?

It doesn’t matter if a fact is good or bad, I thought. You don’t mind once everyone agrees. Their consensus makes it true, and truth feels safe.

Besides, the rush-hour train served for company. I settled in under a man’s armpit, felt the stud of a woman’s handbag digging into me, and thought: I am a part of something.

When I met someone I liked, I wanted all of them, and fast.

“You keep describing yourself as this uniquely damaged person, when a lot of it is completely normal. I think you want to feel special—which is fair, who doesn’t—but you won’t allow yourself to feel special in a good way, so you tell yourself you’re especially bad.”

i broke up with you because you threatened to break up with me. i felt your power and wanted to feel my own. i did. it worked. i hate it.

Beneath it, though, the main reason you hate me, when you do, is that you’re terrified of vulnerability. This is so both because others have been unkind to you in the past, and because you don’t like yourself and are sure anyone who gets close will agree. That’s what makes people afraid to offer you intimacy. They know you’ll reject it. You broke up with the love of your life because you saw how much power they had to hurt you.