Vunerability (n): the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.
I am the kind of person who can tell you, a stranger, about the deepest ugliest parts of my story and not squirm. And, I mean deep and ugly.
I can tell you about how my soul was shredded when I was forced to let go of my first girlfriend. How, that summer, I hoped most nights I wouldn’t wake up in the morning because my heart was so broken.
I can tell you about the terribly, deep depression I experienced when my family lost their second house and my sister answered my IMed question of “How are you?” with “Well, I ate today…so, good.”
I can tell you how much deeper that depression became when that same sister moved out of our family home and I knew that our family was never going to be whole again.
I can tell you about the loss of the dream of becoming some great….anything when I had to leave my college career due to money. How I knew I was going to become someone who worked menial jobs and wasted all the brilliance gifted to them in their brain…….just like my dad.
I can tell you how I felt eviscerated by my mom telling me that once I left to move in with my second girlfriend (turned wife) that there was no coming home.
I can tell you how it felt when my wife chose to ignore the boundaries that are intrisic to every human.
I can tell you how awful it felt when she told me that she was “wondering when [I] would break” after telling me that she wasn’t coming home for the night…again. Or how she deepened the cut when she looked over at the woman (who we were opening up our relationship so she could have) to say that this other woman was worth the potential of losing me…after 13 years.
I can tell you all these stories indiviually or collectively and so many others. I can tell them to you as snippets or as whole sagas. And I will. And I will, not because I want your pity or your love for having told them. No, I will tell them because I think that everyone should know that they are not alone in the darkness. I think that everyone should know that as they walk through the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” that they have company. Because one of the greatest lies that we can believe is that we are alone, that “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrows.” And while, that is a fact of nuance, it isn’t true.
I do not know the flavor of sorrow that you are tasting right now and I am sorry for that. I am sorry that it is bitter and poisonous. I am sorry that it drapes itself over you and stuffs itself down your throat, like being held under water. But when it whispers in your ear that you are not worth taking the next breath and no one will miss you if you just stop fighting the undertow, know that you are not alone.
If you needed a sign to keep walking, to keep breathing, to keep fighting, to keep trying…here it is. You are worth it. I promise. No, I don’t know you but I don’t have to to know that if I were sitting next to you, I would be reminding you that having you as part of the collective of humanity is important. You matter and I am glad you made it this far. I look forward to seeing what else you become.
