At a deep level, one that pushes me further to be myself, the topic for this week still pulses in the back of my head. A fear revealed is awareness: a fear shared is vulnerability. However, fear has a way of sneaking up on you. I wasn’t expecting to feel so raw from sharing my fears about marriage. I especially didn’t think to feel raw after sharing them with a person I am considering one day marrying. I could feel my heart race whenever my mind wanted to process. Often times I felt angry and something unrelated or emotionally nude with an overactive self-awareness.
The list of fears compound on one another. I’m grateful for this post. I can make a stopping point to reset. My stomachs still churns. My arms still ache. I can feel a flare coming any moment. I’ve learned that true vulnerability comes at a cost and I’m grateful that I can feel all these feelings.
Yes, I’m grateful. Earlier this year, I was a rock, a shield of faith raised to protect me from a scary situation, but my emotions were a study and unmoving as my disposition. I had to defend myself against someone that I had shared a few vulnerable topics, but they had decided to take them to unwarranted extremes. You can see why I would be nervous when, here I sit, going through the process of revealing layer after layer to someone else.
We may be the sum of our experiences, but the experiences we reveal to others reveals our character. Who we are, versus what, is more important. I may have a series of feelings based entirely in my experience, but what I choose to do with them constitutes more of my being than the experiences themselves. Plain English: this year sucked, but how I address it of the rest of my life is more important than being in fear of it.
I guess what I’m attempting to say is that my biggest fear was being vulnerable. Yes, the task was to be vulnerable about my fear, which is to be vulnerable. I think recognizing where the initial fear stems makes the world of difference. If anything, I’ll be more aware in the weeks and months to come and knowing is half the battle. I can and will confront this head on. Both her and I deserve that much.
Intentional Vulnerability 