Vulnerability

I have a love/hate relationship with vulnerability. I spent a long time hiding. I'd only show what I thought people wanted to see. Nothing was spontaneous, everything was scripted for effect.
I made the right gestures, I showed the right facial expressions, I made the right little noises.
Even during sex, you only saw of me what I wanted you to see. I was never vulnerable unless I chose to show you vulnerability and then only a certain amount, scripted to get a response from you. I showed just enough vulnerability, after showing my strength, to make you feel like maybe that supposed vulnerability was special and shown just to you, that maybe you were the one who I felt safe with. I scripted everything to make you want me, and eventually, to make you love me.

Then I met Wolf, and for the first time I really was vulnerable. I really was honestly happy, and honestly scared, and just plain honest. It was exhilarating not to hide, to honestly eel things and show them. But it... didn't work out well for me.

So I retreated again. I put up the masks, and they got me through some really hard things.

Then I met Bunk, and I married him because he offered me safety and friendship, and that was all I wanted and thought I could handle. I tried to be honest with him, but I kept lapsing back into old patterns.

Then I met A. And he showed me my submissive side. He made me scared and happy and very, very vulnerable. He read me, he knew when I was lying with my face, my eyes, my posture, and he taught me honesty with him. I loved it.
But A couldn't give me what I needed outside of scene, so I found Jay. He was a Dom, he said, and he said he could read me, could give me that vulnerability and exhilaration.
He couldn't, and in fact I learned better than ever how to hide everything from him because he knew how to make every issue my fault, how to twist the knife in me. So I shut down, and I stayed that way for over a year before leaving him.

Enter Jack. I could be honest with Jack because I was leaving. We were never meant to be long-term. So I said, "Fuck it, I'm tired of hiding. I'm leaving, he can see me and it won't hurt anything because we won't be together long enough for him to get attached."
That was 2.5 years ago. Today.
I've spent 2.5 years being more honest and emotionally aware than ever in my life. I've consciously resisted manipulating him, given him the most honest and vulnerable parts of me and done my damndest to make this work. I've loved it. It's been an incredible feeling to have someone know me, inside and out- not just what I was willing to show them, but all of me. The fear and the issues and the scars and the broken bits and the strength and the kindness and the stupid obsession with self-sacrifice and the laziness and the need and the pointless ramblings. All of me.

But last night, I put the mask back on because it was more important to me not to hurt him than it was not to harm myself.

And I think it broke me.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to be vulnerable, be able to just drop the masks and quit hiding behind them.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm better off keeping them.