who knew

I didn't know that what I normally considered my best attributes were also all the things holding me back from any real happiness. If I'm patient with no one to be patient with then what? If I'm caring, kind, funny, forgiving, non-judgemental, and affectionate with no one in my life to be all those things for then what? I feel lonely and disused. I feel like a beautiful bird that's just flying around aimlessly. I can not be any of those things to myself. And I don't know why. I treat me second best when I should be first. I can't stop looking out for others unless I cut everyone out of my life that matters. I want to re-locate and start all over. I don't belong here. I never feel comfortable here. I just want to forget everything that's happened to me and not drag it with me. I feel like I'm in a constant contest. That I'm always on display. And I get angry that no one seems to think outside themselves.
All I can think of is others. Their day, mood, life, worries, loves. I'm genuinely intrigued. But I'm not enough on my own. I just sit with myself and get bored. I always have to be reading, writing, watching, looking, thinking. And its exhausting. The truth is, the only way I feel the weight of myself lifted off of me for a moment is when someone's got my attention. There is so little I care to cling to. I think the truth is I lost my real ability to trust in anything getting a chance to live up to its potential. I'm my own worst enemy I've been told. I prefer it that way. I've gone my thirty years with no other enemies. So I guess that's the price I pay. Maybe if someone was there for me through true thick and thin the way I've been for so many people in my life, I would believe in others. Everyone takes. I didn't know I let them. I let people take things from me and that's what needs to stop. Problem is I think in black and white. Stopping for me means stopping myself from being the things I like about me. I wonder where that would leave me?
Maybe what I really need is to meet a care-taker like myself? What I need is someone to go the extra step, like I would. I need someone who needs me. Because if I can't use what's best about me to have a best love, than I become someone else who others will respect and love but whom I will hate. I will no longer ignore red flags, but I will no longer be made to feel that being treated like shit is something I brought on by being kind, patient, and caring. I will still do my best but from now on ill expect it in return. I will never be someone's bandaid again. If I can be strong enough to do things on my own so can they. I will not fall for the emotionally terminally ill, I'm not an emotional nurse! And I will only lean on someone and count on them and allow them to support me after building a real strong true loving relationship.
I didn't have anyone during the worst phase of my life, and I needed someone. No one showed up, and came through and it hardened me deeply. I went ahead and softened up my ability to trust in order to fall in love last year and that was a mistake. Maybe now I can find the balance between hard and soft? I don't know if there is one. I just know there is a new phase coming up for me. I am trying to prepare for it. I also know there is only one more real effort to be made by me to change the next outcome. I will be more involved in the direction things go, with an open heart, but with the idea that this next time I fall in love is my last.