Self-Centered

What does self-centered look like?

Is it my need to have someone acknowledge everything I say?  Is it my desire to have constant reassurance from the people I love?  Is it my expectation to be the center of someone's universe exactly when I want them?  Is it the way that I constantly try to impress?  Is it the justification of my bad behavior?  Is it all these things?  Is it everything that I have become?

I am hurting someone that I love.  This has created two thoughts. First is that I love him and don't want someone to be hurting him even if it is me.  This thought makes me want to say that he would be much better off without me, especially right now.  I feel like I should tell him that I am going to walk away, because I love him, and maybe some day I can come back the person he deserves to have in his life.  This is my love for him that says he deserves the best life he can possibly have and I am not that right now.

The second thought is that I desperately don't want to loose him.  It is physically painful to think about him not being in my life.  He comforts and challenges me and those are two things that are damn near impossible to find in the same person.  I am a better person with his influence in my life. He has made being really sick not quite so bad, even bearable.  I could spend days just silently looking in his eyes.  I have never had conversations with anyone that I enjoy as much as I enjoy talking to him.  His voice soothes my soul.  This is my love for myself saying that I need him for my selfish reasons.

Does he get anything out of this relationship?  Am I just too difficult to merit keeping me around? Am I even capable of being a person of substance anymore?  Is it really the emotional turbulence that makes these undesirable qualities so prevalent?  Am I strong enough to do the right thing?  What is the right thing?

I have no idea what self-centered looks like, but I am afraid it might look like me.

Rose