Will this always be inevitable for me?

When I came to Boulder (and I suppose also in gradual steps prior to that) I stopped being who I am. Or who I had been. Because in a way I've become someone else. Or have I, actually? I'm not sure I CAN change who I am, even though I have certainly tried. But when I came here, I was determined to be different. I didn't want to be the Lena I had always been. The Lena who loved people unconditionally, who gave everything I could for someone else, who sacrificed on behalf of other people's happiness. I no longer wanted to be the Lena who was taken advantage of, who people came to expect things from, who suffered heartbreak from unrequited love (and I don't speak of romantic love here). I wanted to be free from this. It's caused me so much pain in the past. So many feelings of worthlessness, uselessness, anger, bitter, aching, longing, disappointment, etc. I was tired. My body was tired. My head was tired. My heart was tired. My soul was tired. So I intentionally never did the nice things I normally did for people. I broke my streak today. I bought Jakob some clothes hangers he had forgotten to buy himself. Little does Jakob know that normally, he could expect "gifts" like that from me probably 3 times a week. But he would never know to expect that, because I've never done anything for my roommates. I've never gone out of my way for them.Or for any of my friends here. I thought I was sparing myself of hurt. I thought if I never did those things for people here, they wouldn't come to expect it from me as everyone else has in all the other places I've been. I thought that no one would use me because no one would know that it's so easy to do. The longer I lived here, the more I retreated myself from the people around me, the more I isolated myself. And if any of you really know me, you know that I fall in love with the people around me incredibly easily. And I was. I was falling in love with everyone around me. And the more I loved them, the more I knew it would be impossible for me not to live my life devoted to making them happy. Because that's what I do. When I love people, I want to give them everything. People like to throw around the well-known teaching of Jesus: "There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." I, of course, don't believe that this sentence means that greatest love is to literally lay down your life, to literally die for someone. I believe it means to lay down your life in the sense that you lay down your selfishness, your own desires, your conceit, your pride. I believe it means to LIVE as though the life of your friend was more important than your own. That IS what love is to me. And it always has been. To lay my life down for others. And I did that for a long time.

Today, I sat outside, alone on my porch, and I thought. I thought about how I tried to protect myself and my heart from all the people who could potentially take advantage of me, who could potentially hurt me. And I realized that I had hurt myself. Because this isn't me. Withholding love is not me. I have betrayed myself. I miss being who I used to be. I miss loving and giving and laying down my life. I think that's why I bought Jakob the hangers. I needed a brief moment and a very small act to remind me who I was, to remind me what's really important to me. I don't want to be the person I've become. And I think I've come super close to digging a hole of depression for myself because of it. I decided I wanted to be more like the person I used to be.

And then, just a few hours later, I was reminded again of why I had wanted to stop being that person. I was reminded of the heartbreak that it always leads me to. Because there was one person to whom my love continued to be steadfast and giving. I was willing to lay down my life in every sense of the word. But again, I feel like the reality of that situation is that this unquenchable, self-sacrificial love is also dire love. Again, I feel it is one-sided. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is even capable of loving me the way I love them. I wonder if ANYone on this earth could have "lay down life" love for me. I wonder if this is my inevitable fate. I wonder if I am somehow, and for some reason unknown to me, meant to be in this situation. I'm so tired. Even though I want to be the person I once was, I'm too scared. I'm scared to live a life of this repeat. I want to know that SOMEONE finds me worthy of loving, of fighting for, of sacrificing for. I don't want this "unrequited love" to be inevitable for me.