Distance

When we are young, contact is easy. Friendships are made in schoolyards and at playgrounds so simply.
When we grow, human relationships start to get complicated.

Our first bad experiences hurt. They leave a mark on us. The first time we feel betrayed haunts us, and we tell ourselves never again.
We develop this fear of hurt, the fear of attachment and of seperation. We tell ourselves never again and we find a way of prevention, a protection from future deceptions.
Distance. 
My mother repeated it relentlessly, keep your distance. Make friends, have fun, but always keep a distance. 
What is this distance? I imagine it's safety. It's our way of being one step ahead.
Keeping a perimeter, no trespassing.
Do we realize that this safety zone is a lonely zone? When did we stop minding loneliness for safety? It's when we told ourselves to let our guards down for this one person, and still found all we were hiding from. Never again.
I just ask myself how many souls have been punished by these elevated walls? How many souls tried to climb up only to fall back into deception? Is it fair?
Is it fair to make people suffer to keep myself from hurting? Is it fair that I get hurt when I open up for someone who keeps closing in? 
Through our whole lives we come close to people and we part ways. It's a relentless rythm. Some of these partings do not happen without leaving trace. They change us. They modify our functions. At the end are we really the same person?
It's inevitable. If you keep your distance or not, you never stay true to who you are. You are never the same person you were years ago, months ago, yesterday.
I keep my distance. I close in and protect what's left of my heart. I just forget that there's still one person inside who's able to destroy everything and bring in all the fears of the outer world. Myself. 
How do I keep distance from myself? This stupid self that decides out of nowhere to let down her guard and fall in love. I keep falling in love with love. The love of giving, caring, sacrificing. The readiness to give my all so someone would feel loved and happy. Because I'm the kind of person who enjoys giving gifts a lot more than recieving them. 
Let me tell you something. A little ego never killed anyone. If you have it keep it and pray that I could one day find some. Just enough to want to take care of myself first. For once in this life. A little ego so I can do something for me and only me. A little ego so I feel like I exist.