Vulnerability...

It's an evolving thing for me...

It seems to require me to move towards it and then retreat.  Like some of life can be lived vulnerable and raw and then there are other parts that require, demand a hasty retreat into privacy and self.

After all these years, it kind of feels like I am human yoyo.

"We practice opening by not closing..."

Fuck, that is such a lofty aspiration.  I think I have done the reverse, “we practice closing by not opening...”  That could be my life’s mantra!

Sometimes vulnerability has come to me in small, tiny moments with just one person.  This blog was a massive undertaking and far flung bid to be vulnerable.  But the upcoming book publication is the most vulnerable I have gotten, ever.  With anyone, save my therapists.  It is an in-depth look inside the life and mind of me, as a child, as an adolescent, as the young adult shitshow, the healing and growing adult who never feels all that adult.  Sometimes I really am taken aback when I realize that I am 56.  In my mind, I am so very often 13...

It is a hard ask to release that which you have kept locked down and away for decades.  But I know that truth will set me free.  And hopefully my brave foray into the ultimate vulnerability, at least for me, will assist others in confronting their own damaging pasts.  That is my sincere hope and desire.

The thing about vulnerability I never knew is that you can take it back to some degree.  Just because you put it out there doesn’t mean that you have to be willing all the time to discuss it, deal with it.  You can still shelve the stuff that almost kills you.  It doesn’t have to be front and center all the time.  You get to decide to put it out there and you also get to decide when you might want to call it back.  I mean,  you can’t unring the bell.  Once you release the secret(s), they are out there.  And like that bell, it can’t ever be undone.  But just because you unearth and share your most painful parts, doesn’t mean that you are forever tasked with discussing them all the time. You still get to decide when and if and who and how.

So boundaries turn out to be an important part of this whole vulnerability thing.  We practice opening by not closing, and also, sometimes we close or shut down when it is too much.  And that is ok too.  Just because we reveal the unrevealable, doesn’t mean that we are open all day, all the time.  We all get to decide when we want to discuss the revelation and when we do not.

And yes, I am writing this to remind myself.  As the book draws ever nearer it publication date, I feel my anxiety rising like the tide during a hurricane.  Swelling to life threatening proportions but now with the knowledge that I can take higher ground.  That I can move myself up and away when I need to.  Just because I am letting this go, doesn’t mean that I am forever left open and bleeding.  I can seek care and attention when I need it.  Whether that be from others or just from myself.

It is mine to reveal.  And so it shall remain.  I get to decide how much I want to talk about it, how much I want to discuss and when I am able to do that.  The thing most important about vulnerability is that, perhaps the most vulnerable thing we can ever do is to say, “I can’t do what you want me to right now, I am sorry, but I will circle back when I am ready...”

Took me 56 years to get to this conclusion...and I guess, I have to say it is worth all the trouble, pain and heartbreak along the way.  True vulnerability means owning what you feel, when you feel it.  And I have been loathe to do that for most of my life.  I much preferred to discuss it in the distant abstract.  So much safer from that place.  But not vulnerable. Not really.

Today I see the revelation is just the beginning of an evolving intimacy and vulnerability with myself and others...and I think I am ready.  I pray I am ready.  I hope I am ready...which could also be a life’s mantra come to think of it...

Again, still...