I know I'm jumping all over the place, but I think I've narrowed down the "I'm not allowed to feel." I think that I've decided that I'm not allowed to love. I see my love as an inconvenience for other people, something that they don't really want to know about and just find to be disturbing or awkward. When I was thinking about this, I remembered something that I thought about a couple of months ago. There's this girl that I love (I don't mean am attracted to or need to be with, just love), and I was considering telling her. One phrase that I thought from then stuck with me. "I'm sorry, but I love you." As if it was just something that would push her away. I never did tell her, because I was afraid that if I told her she would find it intolerable to be around me anymore.
Since I can't show love or be allowed to feel it around people, I end up trying to connect with them through the things that I do or services I proved. By being smart or funny or useful. But none of that really feels like connection, because it's all impermanent. I always have to be doing more, refreshing the connection, because it never lasts much longer than the action used to create it. And it doesn't feel like a connection. So I can't win, no matter what I do there is no way to win if I want to be with people. I can push them away with the love that is supposed to connect me to them, or I can forgo that love and settle for a superficial connection that doesn't satisfy.
As to where this belief came from, I have no idea at the moment. I think that I'm getting close to the root of the matter, but I don't know how far this has to go before that happens. Incidentally, I'm going to tell the girl that I love her, if only so that I know that I did it. So that I will no longer have to be afraid of what will happen.
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