you & me

Love, Vulnerability And Painting A New Self: I Fall Apart Willingly.

85 years of vulnerability.

I have been granted approximately 85 years in this universe (maybe more if I exercise and watch my cholesterol). What am I going to do with them?

That’s 85 years filled with opportunities to be vulnerable, to love and be loved. But that simple-sounding mission — to be vulnerable — has turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

After all, once you decide to be vulnerable, you have opened yourself to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that you will be hurt. It is terrifying to be open and stretched side-to-side for a universe that often seems as if it couldn’t care less.

That’s the price of admission, though. Vulnerability and growth, love and loss dance forever together.

Because I’d rather risk hurt than lose the chance at love, I am trying to stop a cycle of self-sabotage. I am trying to sit calmly with my fear of being fully vulnerable, of falling short, of potentially losing you at the very moment that I let you truly see me. I am trying my best to not short-circuit a future filled with love because of fears in the present.

I am trying, because of you.

That’s what is supposed to happen, as terrifying as it can be. Relationships are catalysts of the soul, forcing you into the most amazing moments, and the most vulnerable and scary moments. Relationships dare you to expose the fragilities and corners of yourself that you find ugly and want to hide.

They help you share the dreams that you have never spoken of and the thoughts that you have always believed no one could ever possibly understand. They help you risk yourself and, in so doing, help you grow.

I am my own witness to this soul growth.

With you, I have leapt into the scary deep and am embracing the points where our insecurities and our sureties collide. These collision points are changing how I see the world and helping me paint a new self, one that would never have been born had we not stumbled into love together.

 

‘A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,’ reworked by the heart of today.

Georges Seurat painted his famous A Sunday on La Grande Jatte on a huge canvas.

The scope of his 8′ by 12′ masterpiece is remarkable when you stand before it and feel his pointillist style toy with your sense of perspective. So many tiny points of paint, which mean nothing when looked at in isolation, come together to create something so different when taken as a whole.

Every time that I walk out of your bedroom, I see the Seurat replica you have hanging on your wall.

It seems too small. Not because I have seen the original. But because of us. Because of all the points that we have already created and experienced and joined together. How many points can we paint on the canvas of life in the time that we have been granted?

Stumbling, tripping over points unknown or unremarkable.

I have stumbled through life, tripping over and over. I have self-sabotaged myself into submission and surrender and depression. A million times, at least, I have fallen short because I would not let myself be myself.

Three words, and everything changed. I know what three words you are thinking of. No, not ‘I love you’. Though that followed.

Three other words, precursors and catalysts for change. I. Met. You. Those three words and I knew. From the first hug. Then the first kiss and the first time you melted into my side. Then those other three words came too and have continued to echo through every point we create together: I love you.

And with that, and with you, I am finding my self again.

I show you my scars. You caress them. With annealing love, you strengthen my weaknesses. You awaken me, let me be safe in the vulnerability necessary for knowing my self, for seeing and accepting the flaws and strengths that have twisted together into the person I now am.

I trust in that; you trust in me; I trust you.

And I try to do the same for you. I try to give you the same safe space. True heart connecting with true heart, each willing to believe and believing in the vulnerability of love.

I fall apart, willingly.

With that vulnerability, I simultaneously fall outside of myself and plunge deeper into parts of myself that I have never wanted to see. There are so many ways to tumble.

Each type of fall brings with it that adrenaline-pumping, terrifying yet exhilarating sense of letting go, of losing control, of plummeting toward something potentially terrifying.

And here I am, ready to fall over and over again:

I fall apart.

I fall for you.

I fall into you.

I fall in love.

But by falling, I am paradoxically starting to learn balance. Contrasts collide, and creative destruction turns my world upside down. The process of falling has helped me opened myself to a dialectics of emotion.

Good/bad. Love/hurt. Joy/sadness.

They loop in on themselves, snake around and eat one another to create something new and more encompassing.

That’s what the two of us do, though, isn’t it? We break all the rules, explode the expected, create a new normal every time we kiss.

We twist things one more revolution, one more unique point, until our love and laughter de-familiarize everything and make the everyday appear as amazing and universe-astounding as it truly is.

Anchored together — our souls talking quietly at times and passionately colliding at other times — we drown out everything. It is a feeling of intensity and burning that can only be brought about by accepting your own vulnerability. And being willing to share it with someone else.

I know there is a terrifying truth to being in love and giving yourself fully. I embrace it. I fall apart, willingly. I feel you falling apart as well. With eyes closed, I taste your tears as they land on our kissing lips.

So, my love, watch me fall apart. No, more than that. Help me fall apart. Let us tease ourselves open with kisses, and let our soft caresses wear away the crumbling foundations and ancient walls that limit rather than protect us. As we fall apart, spread my ribs and grab my heart with your love.

Tear me open with your touch. Build me back together with your lips.

While sweat mingles with sweat and skin touches skin, let our hearts hear one another. With lip biting lip, let soul satisfy soul.

Let us break into a million pieces, scoop the glittering fractures up with tender hands, toss them above our heads with a laugh, and shower ourselves in possibilities.

Since we met, the landscape of love.

How many points in time have we shared? It feels like an infinity. It feels like not enough. Each of our points in time simultaneously punctures and rebuilds my heart in ways that disrupt the experience of the everyday.

And with our love de-familiarizing everything I see and hear and taste and smell and feel, I am suddenly alive again.

I walked barefoot in the mid-summer grass. I thought of you. With the green parts giving easily to my feet, and the dry, bronzed strands poking at and crunching under my soles, I felt connected. Connected to the earth, connected to nature, connected to life.

And that, my love, is why I thought of you.

My soul jumps and skips from topic to topic. But there is a unifying thread. Always. That sense of connection is what linked the feeling of my feet tied to the earth with the feeling of my heart tied to your heart. Connection and unification. And it is all so incredibly natural.

As though it has been there all along, waiting for me to stumble barefoot and bare-souled into it. And I found it with you.

Above this passionate soul finally on fire, I see the suburban sky. A stillness covers everything — the neighborhood sidewalks are empty of dogs and moms, the houses are quiet with cable shows and nighttime routines, and even the clouds in the pink-purple twilight have stopped moving.

Calm. Quiet. Except for my heart and soul and mind. They cannot stop moving. Because of you.

They race from emotion and thought, leaving invisible froth that I feel but no one sees in their wake. I sit on fire in a quiet world. Because of you. Because of us.

 

The point(s) of it all.

I am, at last, willingly risking myself. That sounds more daring than it is. To be honest, I simply cannot imagine not doing so with you. I am torn open and vulnerable, and loving every second together and every point we create.

We are building a life and love one kiss and touch and caring gesture at a time, with each connection point part of a bigger picture that we cannot even fully appreciate yet.

You see, like Seurat’s picture, love is so much bigger when experienced in person. It is impossible to appreciate, until you stand in front of it and it overwhelms you and whispers your name in person.

I fall apart as you speak my name. My center cannot hold. And I do not want it to. Let it crash to the ground.

Let that old, inadequate center of self dry up and die. I am rebuilding it, thanks to the alchemy of annealing love and terrifying vulnerability.

Knowing all things involve emotion, what points will we puncture into the fabric of life? What will we create, what picture will we leave behind? Each point, each decision, each kiss and cry and caress is part of our broader, beautiful whole.

It is our lives, my dear, painted together, creating our own pointillism of the heart.

Comments

Patrick Linder

Patrick Linder

A regular contributor to Rebelle Society, Patrick Linder values his writing as a vehicle to help carve a life built on emotional intensity and openness. Beyond his work with Rebelle Society, Patrick is an award-winning novelist. His Seattle-based mystery, Ghost Music, is available in both paperback and Kindle eBook format and has been called a '5-star' book that 'should be at the top of your must-read list'. Connect with Patrick at his blog, on Facebook, or via Twitter.
Patrick Linder
Patrick Linder