On Vulnerability
I am in this state of wonder where it feels like I am living my wildest dreams. There is this content that i feel in my innermost being that for the life of me i cannot comprehend. I guess there is just something about roughing out the cycles of life and just surviving. This is something i find myself dwelling on a lot lately, especially for the younger people in my life. Life’s happenings can look big in the moment, totally blown out of focus, out of perspective and insurmountable. When that happens, my mantra to them is to just wait and see how time is the magic ingredient to bring things back into focus and you guessed right, perspective. Just live long enough and everything is righted.
Someone keeps reminding me of one of my recent pieces where i began by talking about having had my heart broken twice in six months. They made that statement in a tone of wonder, wondering how a person could hang themselves out to dry like that publicly. How a person can stand to show the not so tidy parts of their lives. I wish they had had the experience of feeling the devastating violation it is to have your journal read without your permission. The journal you dumped all your thoughts, fantasies, dreams and expectations. The secret, innermost thoughts that were never destined for the light of day, much less other eyes not your own. Maybe we should call it what it is, a rape, a taking. A theft.
Here are some things i wish i could have said in that moment (we all have those sometimes right? When we only remember the good comebacks after the fact? Glad I’m not alone in that)
I lived it. I survived it. I made it. When i was going through the hurt I didn’t know that i would wake up one morning and just feel easy. Feel light. Feel like Abla baby again. I did it. Well, me, Jesus and those who love me with a ferocity that shocks me ALL THE TIME.
Vulnerability, especially public vulnerability is a display of strength. I used to think it was a weakness. Baby, it’s not. It’s strength to show your humanity, just as it is strength to show the chinks in your armour, your clay feet. How else are people expected to relate with you if they are stuck at your feet, looking up at you in adoration? So, no i would not be hiding my pain any more, even if I do not write about it on this blog, i definitely make it a point to talk about it with my nearest and dearest.
Pain can be a means of connection with your nearest and dearest and even random strangers. Everyone is going through something and not everyone know how to reach out and touch for support. Sharing opens up that connection, that access point. The world could do with more of that.
There’s this YouTuber I follow called Platinum D and she shares it all. Of course she gets roasted on different Internet forums but she stays herself and i love her for it. She has this loyal cadre of followers because she chooses to share it all. She is definitely an acquired taste but she is my acquired taste. I do not agree with everything she does but i love her regardless. There’s a lesson there.
So yes we’re sharing it all. Go and jump if you do not agree.
