Where “myself” goes first
“Why do I lose myself in every relationship?” You ask it as if the losing happened to you, as if you looked up one day and the person you were had already left. But there was a first minute, then a second, and you were there for both.
It starts small. Someone you care about goes quiet, and you’re already reading into it. With the Moon in Cancer, you take in the mood of the person next to you before you’ve noticed your own, and that’s the first place you go missing. Their mood becomes the weather you plan around. You soften what you were going to say. You say: “It doesn’t matter,” and in that moment it’s almost true, because your own wanting has gone quiet underneath theirs.
By the time you notice, the list of what you like, what you’d choose and what you’d refuse has been trimmed to match someone else’s. You did it quickly and quietly, so quietly that you can’t point to the day. You love all the way or not at all, and half-feelings scare you. So you go in fully, and fully leaves no room for you.
The strange part is that the closer someone gets, the less of you there is to be close to.
Where does it happen in your body? Not in the thought “I’ve lost myself.” That comes much later. It happens right after you swallow the thing you were about to say. Your chest closes a little, and you keep talking as if nothing moved.
Could it be that you’re not afraid of losing them – you’re afraid of the feeling that comes when you stay yourself and they’re disappointed? That feeling is very old and very fast, and your mind has a reply ready before it finishes: “Keep the peace. You can say it later.” Later doesn’t come, because by then there’s something new to keep.
More thinking about why gives the mind a bone to chew while the chest stays exactly as it is. You can understand every reason and still say “Whatever you want” tomorrow.