4 years ago, I decided to be vulnerable with another human being. As time progressed, I found it increasingly easier to open up to other human beings. Today, I can proudly say that I have broken down walls for people that I wouldn't have shattered for my own self; had I been standing on the other side. All it took for me to let people in was their keen interest. Ask the right question and I shall courageously answer.
When you become this easily reachable, you begin to feel like a public library of sorts. People explore your pain, your joys, your perspectives on life, and even your most private thoughts, at their own whim. You become the guy with a fresh perspective, the senior who is the most sorted, the human being you can talk to because you know they aren't afraid of petty struggles, pain and hurt. I became this guy. I naively believed that letting myself out in the open was somehow going to help me accept who I am better, all while proclaiming my capacity to be vulnerable with human beings.
Vulnerability is exhausting and I've received no joy from it. I have been there, out in the open, bare to my soul in the hopes that this is what it takes to forge stronger relationships. 4 years have gone by and I do not believe this anymore. All it gives you is greater and persistent hurt.
I have reached a point in my life where I've grown tired of other people being able to access my heart so easily, handing them unnecessary power that they can use as they please. I don't think a lot of human beings are capable of exercising that power and, yet, they choose to do so anyway without every worrying about the repercussions for the same. As Sherrilyn Kenyon put it in her book, Devil May Cry:
“When you love someone... truly love them, friend or lover, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt—you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul. And when they do strike, it's crippling—like having your heart carved out. It leaves you naked and exposed, wondering what you did to make them want to hurt you so badly when all you did was love them. What is so wrong with you that no one can keep faith with you? That no one can love you? To have it happen once is bad enough... but to have it repeated? Who in their right mind would not be terrified of that?”
I don't quite know how to remain vulnerable despite this constant possibility of pain. A friend of mine said, "at a certain point, you become okay with handing people that power because you know that no one can really break your core".
I don't think I'm there yet. I'm fragile.
I don't think I am ready for vulnerability anymore, even if it comes at the loss of not being able to forge a strong relationship with anyone. I would rather remain protected; safe from external harm.
I spent 18 years trying to block out people and I spent 4 years allowing them to be as close as they'd like. I think it's time for me to degenerate into my previous state; form an impenetrable cocoon until I am ready for the world again.