Vulnerability

Vulnerability. It's become the choice I make everyday. The longer I feel alone in the world, the harder it is to choose.

It seems smarter to live in a world of “I,” sometimes. If I am in control of protecting myself, then I get to choose what I give away of myself. I get to choose what parts of my hurt I let you touch. I get to hang onto my feelings.

I can view the world then from a “safe place” where I can touch you, even through things like these words. I keep you at a distance because I really don't have any other options. The professionals like to call it detachment, I believe.

I can't help but wonder at how my friendships and relationships have changed with people. We are fashioning a world where trust and touch and vulnerability are equated with weakness, danger & stupidity.
We talk, and we listen. Do we hear, or feel, or even reach for what is underneath anymore?

I don't have a champagne taste for life. Rich, simple flavors & full moments & that bubbly feeling aren't the things that matter to me. I don't want tenderness. What I want is, dare I say it, depth. I would like to swim with someone in the deep water of emotion and intellect and vulnerability.

I'm a very good friend of depression. He shows up at my door in his homey, despair. It hangs for a few days and lingers with me. I still answer the door every time my depression comes knocking. I don't have to let it in. I can choose to leave it standing there as I head out that other door called vulnerability and into the world of possibility.

We all deserve some happiness. We all can be someone else's happiness. Sometimes I forget that I am a part of “we” and so it's not right to stand around depressed all of the time. Like everyone else, I deserve visits from goodness & her pal Mercy.

To get there I think I have to keep choosing vulnerability. It's a way to open myself up to a new life. It's become the choice I have to make everyday but I keep going back to my bad habits & emotions. The more challenging finding happiness becomes, the more I know I'll be alone. I'm hoping that renewal is somewhere beyond the door with the big scary “V” on it.

Off I go..