I am the permeable membrane...

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love said: "I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have: my time my devotion my ass my money my family my dog my dog’s money my dog’s time —everything. If I love you... I will carry for you all your pain I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word) I will protect you from your own insecurity I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family I will give you the sun and the rain ...and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else. I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it’s always been." When I read these words I had to put the book down and didn't pick it up again for like...4 months. I just couldn't believe that anyone else felt like me. That anyone else could possibly ever fully understand. That anyone else on earth was just so...so...stupid. I will tell my "sad, little story" of years lost, walking around my life in a coma-like state, for another time. But suffice it to say that this...this book, these words, this feeling of knowing-you're-not-the-only-one... THIS is where the waking up process began. It is that which has brought me here. And I will be DAMNED if I will go back to sleep again.