“Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.”

Vulnerability is a tricky little bitch.

We want to be a strong, fierce, and independent person, but too much of that can be a bad thing.  We can be viewed as being too intimidating or too arrogant.  So we break down our walls – even just a tiny bit – to let others in and show that we really are human.

But when you’re the kind of person who believes in “all or nothing” and “do it right or don’t do it at all,” vulnerability can be downright terrifying.  It can stop you in your tracks, leaving you gasping for air.

The thing is, as you experience life, there will be moments when you have no choice but to let down those walls and be vulnerable.  Maybe you’re lonely and need some kind of connection with another human being.  Or maybe you realize you really aren’t as strong as you used to be and you need someone’s help.  Or maybe you are just tired of living behind those walls for thirty years and you just need to let it all out.

Vulnerability is a tricky little bitch, but being vulnerable is the only way to continue growing and moving forward in life.

I’ve been struggling recently with being vulnerable.  I wonder if I will ever get to that point in my life when I can reveal my broken and damaged past without wanting to crawl out of my own skin.  I wonder if depression is a battle I’m going to be fighting for the rest of my life.  I wonder if my abandonment issues with men (and relationships) will ever fade.

For the last four months I’ve been trying to pick up the pieces.  Trying to avoid certain neighborhoods, restaurants, or bars because the memories are still too painful and the wounds still haven’t healed.  The question of “what did I do?” has been running through my head non-stop, month after month.  I thought I would be okay.  I thought I could sweep the broken pieces under the rug and continue on with life.  But eventually, as with anything we choose to ignore or push to the side, it all caught up to me.  It hurts in places I didn’t even know could feel pain.

When you choose to make big, life-changing decisions – like deciding to move halfway around the world and take a chance on a relationship – and that person that you devote yourself to for the next chapter of your life suddenly walks away from you (and the relationship) without any explanations or answers, it’s going to break you into a tiny million pieces and it’s going to shatter your soul.  And you will not be okay.  Because nothing about breakups or heartbreak is just okay.  It’s going to make you wonder how a human being could be so heartless.

But maybe Marilyn Monroe was right when she said, “Sometimes good things fall apart so that better things can fall together.”

I find myself entering the dating pool once again, waiting for old wounds to heal and memories to be less painful to think about.  I find myself back to a place I loathe – vulnerability.  Having to re-tell my broken and damaged past to someone who has potential to be in my future.  Having to find the courage – whatever is left, anyway – to take a chance on another man.

Sometimes, I can’t handle it.

I’ve been on four dates with four different men in the last week.  That means being vulnerable to four men.  That means re-telling my past four times to explain how I got to the present moment.  Because every guy I meet wants to know what led me to Australia.  And of course my story isn’t easy or simple; it’s messy and complicated and I often cringe when I have to tell it to another man who could very well abandonment like the last one did.

But, I do it in the hopes that telling and re-telling the intimate details of my broken past will get easier.  Less painful.  Less gut-wrenching.

Vulnerability is a tricky little bitch, but eventually you have no choice but to be vulnerable so that you can finally move forward and just be you.  Beautiful, bruised, scarred, open-wounds-that-are-still-healing, you.

{photo credit}

Tagged as: choices, dating, relationships, the Important Pieces, vulnerability