I've recently learned a little bit about boundaries; a little about what is mine, and a lot about what is not. Wanting what you do not have is the great American pastime, and for some of us it was a prerequisite for survival in childhood. I was taught to be very good at wanting what you have, taught to believe with my whole heart that I needed what you had, and that it was perfectly appropriate for me to give you whatever you wanted in exchange for it. The problem is that we cannot exchange parts of ourselves, romantic rhetoric aside. The substance of us, defined by our boundaries, is indissoluable and inseperable. We can pretend to use it as so much coin for emotional commerce, but it never, never leaves my possession, and no matter what I'd like to think, I cannot take possession of any part of you, even in exchange for all of me.
I was taught that there existed just such a market for the real estate of me. I've known for a very long time that it was a game, but the threats in my early life—that I'd be abandoned if I didn't play—have laid deep tracks in the now hard-baked muck of history. Changing the course of this early begun, and decades reinforced path is like trying to send the Mississippi to San Diego Bay.
I am me. I can give you any part of my heart and soul, and trust you to take possession of any (or every) part of my life, but it remains me, and if you damage any of it, I will feel the pain, not you. I have sought to escape responsibility for these parts I give you by taking responsibility for parts of yourself that you give to me. If I feel your pain I won't have to feel mine, you will. This was diligently taught to me as the way in which one behaves who is good and kind. Others are selfish and despicable.
I have learned that it is insanity.
I don't want to take care of myself, I want someone else to do it. I don't like me, I want someone else to do it. I don't like my life, I want someone else to live it. I don't like my body, I want someone else to take it—and completely give me his. I don't want to live, I want someone else to live instead of me. These are all lies. At different times, I believe each of them. On particularly dark days, I believe them all. In the end nothing will be lost, nothing destroyed, nothing will be annhilated. All sorts of limitless evil can be threatened, and everything can be feared, absolutely everything. But in the end I will be me, and you will be you, and the sum total of our experience here will be the feelings and emotions we inspired in each other. That will be all there is.
That will be everything.