Fucking Vulnerable

Not OK: that’s OK

The following life excerpt was written 10 days ago and things have calmed down since then. The pain was open flesh at the moment but it’s a kind reminder of things that I don’t want to forget and perhaps no one ever should.

I have been in this relationship for two years now and splitting it apart has been one of the hardest choices I’ve done so far. We’ve met each other’s parents. Shared holidays and hard times togethers. How easy it seems to me now the idea to break-up with someone who hasn’t been there for you, who enjoys your jealousy, but this was nothing like it, and so, doing it due incompatibility in interest and growing apart felt as such shallow reasoning. I would have felt so guilty only to think about it a couple months ago that I would have shut down the thought of my head immediately. Why would anyone on a sane mindset break-up with such a lovely person? I think I had failed to see that I’m only human as well. That I wish for things in specific ways. That no matter how adorable, kind and sweet this person was, I was not happy out of the cliche that woman like to be treated badly and this was too much of a good guy. I was thinking about it because we were really incompatible once all the distractions that kept us focused on something other than ourselves faded away. It’s funny how it works out. We stick together for the bad times but the good ones were even more difficult for our bond, because it showed that we can support each other but not quite enjoy each other’s company when we are doing OK. He will be bound to disagree, because he still loves me enough to say he was thrilled about every single minute we spend together.

It’s also funny how it feels as if people looked at us as unexperienced children who had just fell off the bike for the first time. “It’s going to hurt for a while but then it’s going to be OK” “It’s just part of life” “It’s normal for you to feel this way”. They all seem to look from a higher position, looking down at the little kids whose bond grew together and then got severed apart all of a sudden, too shocked to know what to do, how to react, where to look at full of shame and choking up with tears trying to explain themselves. Living together with another human being was the most rushed thing I have ever done. It doesn’t mean that it was wrong. Now I know. ”If it isn’t true, it is a lie” used to be my motto. Because it seems as if we did, actually, fell in love for each other. As if indeed, I am no one to judge the truth of things depending on their outcome or their duration. I no longer think that things should last forever to count, to be truth and valuable. But how sad it is to know this as well. That no matter how real it feels at any certain point, it can always fade away.

Within all the dark feelings and guilt that came out of someone who I deeply love still but on a different level, more as in a lover-turned-into-best-friend scheme, I’ve learned a handful of things that I hope I will never forget. Vulnerability. Fucking vulnerability. That thing that I was so proud to hide during 23 years, so proud to not ask for help, so proud to avoid looking at.

That vulnerability I have been so proud to mutilate and ignore. So proud to not cry on my father’s funeral, or after 3 armed guys broke into my brother’s house when I was alone, when I lost one of my biggest dreams after putting life aside for a year to make it happen, or when my mother said I was ruining her life by loving a woman.

Vulnerability is for the weak, I’d say to myself. And if I want to ever be strong, no one should ever see it. My partner did. But that was OK. Because it was safe. We knew each other, we turned at each other, it was OK. My secret was safe. I know he wouldn’t say it to anybody. That I was vulnerable, that I am so fucking vulnerable.

What a waste of gigantic effort for no achievement, what a waste of time and loneliness and tears shed under the sound of the running water in the shower to blend with the hurtful sobbing and what a struggle for a real pain to go unnoticed. Because no one should see it or hear it or notice it, and after all no one likes to hear about anyone’s problems, right?

What a wimp would I have been seen as if I had ever gave a call to my friends crying on the phone and telling them that I was sad that I could never say goodbye to my father that day that we couldn’t travel and make it to the hospital on time before he died, or after listening to his patients at the funeral telling us how much he talked about us and was proud of what we had achieved recently even when we had not spoken to him for the last 4 years of his life, or that he kept on his desk a photo of my brother’s wedding at which he didn’t attended because he didn’t got an invitation for. Because that would have been a weakling thing to do. And so I didn’t do it.

Just now I’ve realized that 23 years of this bullshit has been enough.

Keeping pain to myself is not getting me an honorary life award for the most times someone has managed to “suck it up”. Trying to never ever overwhelm anyone by telling them my problems has not granted me any VIP access to anything in life. If anything, the opposite. Shallow bonds where people never really know if I do trust them or need them at all. Just for the past four days, I’ve realized what a soothing and warm sensation there is to call a friend on the phone and mumble “hey, life sucks right now, can we meet?”, even if they take you to a shitty Tim Hortons with sad songs on. I don’t think I have ever felt as supported and free as now, even breaking down every once in a while after it, saying it’s OK I’m weak and I don’t give a shit because we all are and there is nothing awkward or reason to be embarrassed about. It’s OK that I’m letting my friends know because I trust them, I trust them my weakest moments and I’m OK with that and I’m quitting this pointless war against my own human nature.

I’m only human and so are you and that’s so dayum fine.

And I can sincerely only hope to be able to be there for the people I care about when they feel vulnerable as well. Same way as I hope to never forget this lesson, because who is there to say that we don’t need anyone?