Honey,

“I don’t know…

I map – and then take leaps of faith by extending inclusive gestures.

I love you, so I attempt to triangulate toward you possibilities in your favor.

Then, I rely on feedback from you to indicate if I am on target, or if I need to adjust my frequency.

Most of the time, it feels like I am ‘flying blind,’ and just feeling for your heart with my intuition hopefully correctly guiding me.

But this living ‘in between’ is how and why  I can be so easily startled by the unexpected between us without your direct cummunication.

And then I could get triggered into a shutdown or flee reaction by accidentally registering you as a stranger getting too close to me in reality, if/when we were to cross paths suddenly.

I have survived by being extremely cautious in the environments around me, although I mask myself quite fluently to the point where this mechanism apparently now takes over me automatically.

Talk about ‘being in lockstep!’

I had no idea how much masking for safety has become such a part of my external identity!”