I had an at length discussion with this nameless someone (and I choose to keep this person nameless not out of shame but instead out of the sacredness of our relationship and the wanting to keep it only between us) a few days ago and I told him that showing vulnerability was something I hated…deep down to my core I hated it.  He then followed up with, “Well what is vulnerability?”  My senses knew what I meant but the words felt nearly impossible to express.  In that moment I felt vulnerable.  I had to think before I was able to speak.  What is vulnerability to me?  I first had to remember my belief that everything can be defined so differently by each person that roams this earth.  So, again, what is vulnerability?  Well, let me back up for a minute and explain my relationship with this person.  I met this person through an online dating site well over a year ago.  I remember reading his profile and I knew immediately that I had to write to him.  The first words I wrote were:  I think you may just be the male version of me.  From then on the conversations continued and we spoke of meeting but it had not happened (until just very recently).  Throughout us chatting online I was unsure of how I felt.  Was this merely a friendship or could it be more?  After several months and a countless number of electronic exchanges we finally spoke on the phone.  His voice changed the entire game for me (I use the word game loosely so don’t get it mixed up with thinking I view relationships as games).  All of our previous exchanges were miniscule in comparison to hearing the sound of his voice….the rises and falls and the ease in the words as they fell off of his tongue.  I immediately became eager to meet the person behind the voice….the person that made words so beautiful without even trying…..the person that told stories of a world that he sees so beautifully….a world that so few other people are able to see.  The day finally came, after many months of electronic and verbal exchanges, that we were due to meet.  Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was nervous.    Well we finally met and the time we spent together left me feeling something I had never felt before.  The nervousness never disappeared fully but the ease of being around him was something so very new for me.  I listened to him without questioning motives behind his words.  I believed what he said without assuming there was some sort of ulterior motive.  I felt inspired because he made life look so easy.  I was drawn to him because he is someone I unknowingly had been looking for.   He was that comfort that very rarely existed in my being.

So, to get back to my definition of vulnerability….In our lives we experience an abundance of pleasure (if we are lucky) but we also experience pain.  We need this pain in order to truly appreciate the pleasures.  With that being said, pain is never simple and just like pleasure it stirs up a variety of other emotions and feelings.  We all have a story….a history for lack of better words.  People will hurt us while we saunter on the path of life as we will hurt others (sometimes knowingly while other times unknowingly).  Some people in life experience the pain and move on to the next thing.  I am working to be one of those people but I have not quite mastered the technique.  Being vulnerable means showing the true and honest me…..showing all flaws and ridding myself of the mask that has been worn from the time I was a young child.  I am not confrontational and I would always choose to make others happy before making myself happy….this is an unbalance in my life.  In the written word I see myself as brilliant but in the spoken, three-dimensional world I am still a lost young girl wandering around watching everyone around me living lives that I am unsure are meant for me or not???  I hate admitting that I need other people because in the past I have lost many and my heart has hurt unbearably because of it.  I know that the past is simply an illusion but it is hard to forget that sort of pain and it is easy to avoid ever feeling that way again if you possibly can.  So, instead of admitting and expressing my true feelings I hide them….I bury them deep within me.  I guess  a part of me feels that I will no longer do that when the right person/people venture into my life….I will be able to give all of me as opposed to just pieces of me….I will come out of the hiding…..I will be vulnerable and be comfortable with that vulnerability.  Whether I like saying it or even writing it, we all need people in our lives.  As quoted from one of my favorite books, Into the Wild, “No experience is ever as pleasurable if it is not shared.”  These words seem so simple as does the concept.  We may not be able to share all experiences in the physical sense but we have opportunities all of the time to share them in the written or verbal sense.  I want to share my life with someone.  I do not need or want the traditional lifestyle and to live in a manner that society sees fit but I do want to talk endlessly with someone until my last dying breath and have them share as much of themselves with me as they possibly can.

I feel like if my life comes together with that of another beautiful dreamer so much like myself that our lives could and would be surrounded by art.  I imagine rooms being filled with inspiration and the written word.  Through the chaos of words would be the beauty of life.  I cannot share my life with someone that is not an artist….it took me a long time to learn this but there is nothing more true than this.  I may fear love in the manner of losing it but I feel love in a way that makes me feel alive…..love is the most sacred thing in this world that I know right here right now.  I know that I must step out of my comfort zone and rid myself of the fear that is only there because of my past.