Splitting - verb -a psychological mechanism which allows one to tolerate difficult and overwhelming emotions by seeing someone as either good or bad, idealized or devalued.

Splitting is never trusting happiness, closeness, intimacy because you’re all too familiar with the loss of it. Not because people are inherently bad and distrustful, but because your warped mind will turn it upside down somehow, perceiving rejection even when it isn’t there. Splitting is emotional impermanence. Maybe it was always this bleak and you were disillusioned with buoyancy and adoration before. 

 What happened to the flowery prose I had written about a minute ago. I can’t reach the precious thoughts I had about tomorrow. In fact, remembering that I once felt hopeful and alive only highlights how trapped I am in this moment;  the dirt in my fingernails, a limp flower in a cracked vase. I’m splitting. The pleasant thoughts evaporated and instead I’m filled with heavy rocks: That time you couldn’t make it.  Forgetting my favorite movie. That pithy joke about my looks. I sink. 

I cried at the realization that I loved you. That something as simple remembering your favorite dog meant we were close. They were happy tears. I had a friend I wasn’t splitting on, for once. Until the day I finally did. You disagreed with an idea and maybe I had already been raw with jealousy and insecurity. I let your strengths define my weakness. Would you call it envy? 

Splitting is a mechanism of my insecurity, an attempt to control. If I know someone is all good or all bad then I know what to love and to avoid. What to do when I’m faced with the truth -the people I love are not infallible and will disappoint me some day. Will it always be this painful teetering between admiration and disappointment. Trying not to love too hard or hate too fiercely? Disappointment is only as strong as the idealization. How to manage the two? How to stop myself from loving the hell out of someone I really love? 

I love you.