feel that shit

Someone I hardly know lost their mother today. I commented on their post, sent my thoughts and prayers and told them to ‘stay strong’. I immediately wanted to take it back. I frantically looked through their many comments trying to find mine to fix it. “Stay strong”. Up until this very moment, I never noticed how invalidating that is. How could I tell someone to stay strong during a time like this? It almost feels like I’m telling them not to cry, like I’m telling them not to feel what is undoubtedly one of the deepest and unbearable pains one can experience. Fuck staying strong, it doesn’t make you any less strong.

So often, I have found myself apologizing for the things I’ve felt in life. For lingering on something for a little too long, for crying, and crying a lot. Many times in life when I’ve let someone see me cry more than once, I’ve thought to myself ‘I wonder when they’ll get tired of seeing me crying’. I feel. I feel a lot and I feel it unapologetically. I cry when I want and where I want. I cry when I’m mad, happy, sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, you name the feeling and I’ve probably cried about it.Yet, so many times I’ve let people make me feel weak for releasing all my emotions at a moments notice. I’ve never been weak because even in those moments some thought were weakness, I was just resilient. I’ve never doubted my ability to get over something.

The thing is, if I didn’t cry about it, if I didn’t give myself the opportunities to be vulnerable, I’d be resentful. I’d be someone who cheated themselves out of the possibilities that come with being open. I lay it all out because it feels better that way. I lay it all out because I don’t like to have regrets. I give it my all every time because I want to walk away without what-if’s. I love those I love and I love them fiercely. I like to be vulnerable because in many ways, my tenderness is my super power. It’s the most resilient thing about me. I am endlessly delicate. I know it. I know that I give those I really love the power to hurt me. It’s something I try to do as fearlessly as possible but I have baggage too. I have scars. I have trauma I didn’t know I carried until I was putting the weight of it on someone else. I have been cold to people that didn’t deserve it. I have let people that didn’t deserve me get the best of me. I’ve cried all over this goddamn city over people who didn’t deserve my vulnerability. And still I marvel at the fact that anyone could make me feel so much pain and joy at all. I’m thankful for that. Every time.

2018 was one of the hardest years I’ve had. It was hard to not lose all faith in myself. And still, I smiled through it. I smiled through it and sometimes I cried through it. And still, this year all I heard was “you’re always so happy” which made me question how vulnerable and honest I was being with those around me. The truth of the matter is, though I choose to be the smiling giddy child-like woman everyone sees me as, I NEVER deny my sadness. I never push my sadness away. I like to sit with it, explore it, digest it and understand it. I don’t see sadness as a negative thing, sadness is inevitable. Grief is inevitable. It’s hard for me to believe that there is anyone out there who doesn’t carry some sort of sadness with them. That thought makes me feel enamored by strangers. I often look around me and think “Someone thinks you’re beautiful and magical and so worthy of love”. That thought makes me feel hopeful. Hopeful because understanding that each person is an individual with a story that brought them to be who they are, whether good or bad, are loved, by someone. And though I may not know them, I understand unconditional love, and whether we know it or not, someone out there loves us unconditionally and I don’t mean romantically.

vul·ner·a·bil·i·ty

noun

I can understand how the textbook definition of a word can make us feel like yes, vulnerability is a weakness. But my vulnerability IS my superpower. Most people that I know that believe that vulnerability is a weakness walk around the world with a cool exterior. These people never care enough to get hurt, because they feel that if they do, they’ll get hurt. Yes, in hindsight, pain is inevitable. It’s what you turn the pain into that matters. It’s what you let the pain turn you into that matters. Any kind of heartbreak can make you or break you. And the people that have those walls up, the people that hide themselves from the world, from the people around them that love them… they’re broken.

Vulnerability is a noun. A noun is a person, place or thing. It’s almost like the person who wrote the textbook definition of vulnerability knew we were our own kind. Vulnerability is not easy. It’s not meant to be effortless, it’s hard because whether we want to admit it or not, too often we are hiding a part of ourselves from those around us. It’s meant to be hard. It’s meant to be scary. Countless times I’ve choked on my words, or repeated the same sentence in my head a thousand times without being able to muster up a sound.

My vulnerability is my superpower because I am always ready and willing for people to hurt me. And I’ve been hurt. Time and time again. I am sure my pain is no lesser or greater than anyone around me but I always get back up. No matter how much I cry, no matter how sad I am, I am always resilient. I am always down to dive into ocean of human emotion.

Vulnerability is terrifying, but not being vulnerable is tragic. The possibilities with vulnerability are endless, but not being vulnerable? That’s cheating. You’re cheating yourself out of the reality of who someone really is, and what could be. And I don’t just mean romantically. The people we love deserve the rawest version of us. You have to ask yourself, how honest are you being if you’re not being vulnerable? What kind of relationships are you building with a wall up?

What I’m trying to say is… feel. Feel and be honest about what you feel. Don’t hold anything back. Let those around you know what you feel and when you feel it, good or bad. Be honest. Be transparent. The wrong people will see themselves out and the right people will embrace you. You will never know who really sees you until you’ve let yourself be seen .Too often we project our pain on people who had nothing to do with inflicting it in the first place. The older I get, the more I realize how much emotional baggage I have. Yes, baggage is inevitable; but how you carry it isn’t.

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