I realized the other day that I am less comfortable inviting someone in to my space than in going in to their space. I think this has to do with a longstanding pattern of adjusting myself, chameleon-like, to fit the other person's apparent interests and/or needs. 'Cause with my close friends, it's not an issue at all. With certain members of my family, it's only an issue sometimes. But when I think about it in terms of dating, I get all uncomfortable thinking about them in my space. I think this is because of those old fears of rejection, and being in my apartment, in my town, in my space, is seeing me, the real me. It's an intimacy issue. A therapist who was counseling a member of my family once said to him something along the lines of, "The true measure of intimacy is how deeply you are yourself with the other person." I'm paraphrasing, because I don't remember it exactly, but that's the sense of it anyway.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because it's been coming up for me. It came up a lot in my figuring out about my relationship with my ex-husband, too. One of the main things I got out of therapy and observation and introspection was that I wasn't myself with him. I had created this persona, this mask, to cover my true self, and I had created it so thoroughly, repressed myself so completely, that I believed that was really me for a long time.

Did I mention how deeply grateful I am to be out of that relationship, to be seeing myself so much more clearly?

Part of that clarity is paying attention to red flags that come up, and noticing when my behavior or my attitude or the story I tell myself has something off about it, something unhealthy or red-flag-raising. And then to investigate it and try to see what it's about.

So I've been noticing that when I think about making a date with someone, I think about meeting them in their town, at their house, not at mine. I imagine that if they came to my house, I would be nervous and if I went to their house I would know how to be by what their place was like.

What crap! Seriously, if that isn't baggage and a half, I don't know what is. I think this would be a good topic for a hypnotherapy session, honestly.

I know that recognizing it is good, and that simply by recognizing and acknowledging this tendency, I can shift it. I know that I will survive someone coming and seeing where I live. I know that I need to be me, and that if whoever it is doesn't like me when I'm being myself, then that isn't the right person for me. But it's hard to get over 33 years of accumulated fear and habit.