it's hard not to take life personally sometimes...particularly when you look at your losses or failures and realize that the common denominator in all of them is you.
anyone who knows me well knows that i analyze things. A LOT. i have a very difficult time not picking apart the pieces of just about everything and examining them bit by bit. i think i've traced it all back to my toddler-hood when instead of riding my tricycle, i took it all apart and put it back together again....i had no idea how telling that would be of my life.... anyhow, when i use these analyzing skills appropriately, the results are positive. other times, well, i tend to destruct any hope i have left.
right now i am faced with several choices. the results of some of my decisions (some just dumb, some out of fear, some right/correct but hard to bravely face) are staring at me point blank right now and causing my head to spin. and like my usual self, i'm wanting to break down everything into pieces and figure out how to put them back together again, hoping that i won't make the same mistake (if it was a mistake) next time. everything in me is trying to do things the way i've always done it - very methodically, very intricately; i put my examiner glasses on, take responsibility for virtually everything, beat myself up about what went wrong, and wonder if any good will ever come from me. sound dramatic?!
here's the thing though. i don't want to be dramatic. i don't think of myself as a high drama person, though when i look at my life, it is filled with drama because of my analyzation. i'm learning that one of the things that scares me most is when i'm caught in a venerable moment and my drama is revealed to, or in the worst cases, vomited on those that i care about. interestingly enough though, the cry of my heart/the word that keeps coming to my mind for the last few weeks of my life has been "intimacy." i want it, i long for it,i've prayed about it, had others pray for me about it, thought about it, etc. still, it is intimacy that is most frightening to me. being intimate is risky, and i suck at taking risks. in fact, i was just telling a friend yesterday (who happens to be one of the unfortunate individuals who i "vomited" on not long after i met him and freaked him out- poor guy) that if i could be good at anything, i wish i could be better at taking risks. instead of babbling more though,i'd like to attempt to make a point, so i shall type a series of equations:
revealing me to others (a.k.a. intimacy) = revealing my drama
revealing my drama = taking a risk
taking a risk = something i'm not good at but want
intimacy = something else i want
intimacy = taking the risk of revealing my drama
i guess i'm afraid of this risk because it seems like more often than not, when i put myself out there, my drama is not understood and/or resonated with, and people back away, so i feel like a freak. this freakiness can be a turn off to some. i don't want to turn anyone off; in fact, i strongly desire to put people at ease and make them feel welcome and relaxed. how i'm supposed to take this risk of drama revelation/intimacy and come off looking sane and not scaring the world around me, i don't know. i don't think i'm very good at it. history in some ways would suggest that my assessment is accurate. i often feel like a freak as a result. i guess it's not a risk if you know the outcome though; go figure.
all this being said, i suppose i should thank all of you that are my dear friends and have not run away from me screaming. your willingness to simply stick around and not cover your eyes and hit me with a club shouting, "freak! freak!" is amazing to me. and i do mean that sincerely. i must also give a shout out to God who also never runs away from me screaming and actually calls me to bring before Him more of my drama for the sake of knowing the drama He can also bring to the table. crazy stuff.
still, i long to be fully intimate with someone and have them be fully intimate with me. and i keep trying, but to no avail. should i keep trying? i want to, even though the more i try, the more it seems like i am found to be a freak.
when it all boils down to it, i suppose we all just want to be fully known (whether we realize it or not). and as for me? well,i'd really like to get out of the garage of tools and pieces and learn to just ride my tricycle...
5 comments:
oh, shalinn. i never realized how much we have in common.
i, too equate "revealing me to others (a.k.a. intimacy) = revealing my drama".
who wants to hear my drama? there's so much drama in the world already that certainly no one needs to hear about mine, too. i would rather not bother anyone with whatever is going on with me and instead sit quietly and dissect every nuance of it by myself until my head spins.
yet, simultaneously i will be perturbed with myself about the lack of intimacy i have in created in my life. curiously, i am acutely aware of the fact that i feel closer to people when they are vulnerable, transparent and share their drama with me.
it's a sickness i have, really.
so anyway, the point of all of that was to encourage this risk-taking behavior of yours displayed in your post. well done. you are certainly not a freak, at least in the bad way. :)
I personally believe that intimacy is much much more than revealing drama. Example: we all know or have met drama queens. Where is the intimacy there? They tell their life story to anyone willing to give them attention. No. I think it is important to look deeper than just revealing drama.
I once had a falling out with a friend whom I cared a lot about. The reasoning for the falling out is still a bit hazy for me, because it doesn't make a lot of sense. But I know that one of the big problems from my end was that I didn't feel the level of intimacy that I wanted to feel from a "best friends" kind of relationship. I felt excluded from a lot of this person's true thoughts and feelings, and it didn't sit right with me. When there was a confrontation about this, it was explained away like this: "I don't have a lot of drama in my life, so therefore what you want can't be expected of me."
But that never made sense to me. I didn't care about drama. I didn't care to find out about all this person's embarrassing things, if they existed. I just wanted to feel trusted.
The good part of "revealing drama" that you are so desiring is actually just a demonstration of trust. It is trust that is a major founding part of intimacy. Trust means so much more to a relationship than just knowing about someone's problems. Sharing problems/drama is just one way to display trust.
In addition to trust, I think another important part of intimacy is understanding, and therein lies the risk. Displaying trust to someone through sharing your drama/secrets/insecurities/fears with them doesn't feel intimate if the person on the other end doesn't understand and sympathize with your situation. In fact, it can be downright embarrassing. They might think you are a "freak" as you mentioned.
Why else would it feel like a risk to reveal drama? It feels like a risk mainly because of a fear that you won't be understood by the people you are trusting. The interesting thing about this is that the more transparent your friends are, the more you understand and love them despite all else. And vise versa. If sharing your drama comes after first sharing yourself, you should have no fear of not being understood. Only the people that you share yourself with are the ones that are capable of understanding and sympathizing with your drama.
That all being said... I think you hit this post on the nose. You started your series of equations with "revealing me to others" and this post of yours was all about yourself and not at all about the drama. Actually, now that I think about it, I feel like everything I just typed was a waste of time.
"anonymous" - thank you for your in depth thoughts and taking the time to write them. i agree with you that intimacy is much more than revealing drama. part of the reason i wanted to make sure that i thanked my friends that read my post was because i have shared myself/my life with them and then taken the risk of sharing my drama with them. i have many wonderful people in my life that luckily are trustworthy and know that there's much more to me than the difficulties and "drama" that i face. anyway, thanks again for leaving a comment. feel free to post here any time!
jami - right on. i get ya, and i encourage you as well to take those risks. you're too amazing to stay hidden :)
hi shalinn.
I like you best when you are high drama. not because I like watching you go through times that are trying, but because your character shows so much more and you're actually alive when you are high drama! that doesn't sound right but I think you probably know what I mean.
I like it better when you're alive, even if you are vomiting on people. If those are the words you're going to use then you know I've done that to you SEVERAL times in the past.
It's fun to hear you write about these things and await the shalinn-ness that is coming.
and it's funny that I think of myself and how much of this same thing I wish I could tone DOWN! I need to learn how to live in the non-drama. it's funny how we're different. I like that we're friends.
So the method by which I ended up on this page is disturbingly random (and involves Google + Giovanni's Roll-Out Piano...which sort of made me want to die a little when I saw it). You don't know me, nor I you, but you are an engaging writer. I hope whatever you're dealing with works out for you.
RE: sucking at taking risks. OK. It's a skill, believe it or not, and like any other skill you can get better at it. It's amazing what we have the ability to talk ourselves into doing. And not just doing, but actually enjoying. Look at all the ridiculous things that people convince themselves to like. Sushi. Reality television. The White Stripes. Soccer. It's all a matter of wanting to enjoy something and repeating it until it sticks.
Start small. Wear something to work that is not entirely appropriate for work. Try some kind of food that strikes you as odd and intimidating. Hit the snooze button one time more than you should. I think you'll find that none of these things result in you getting fired. They will not bring the world to an end. They will not cause you to burst into flames.
That's really what it's all about - taking small, inconsequential risks, realizing that it doesn't hurt, and then applying the same logic to more important stuff once you've made a habit of it. I'm sure that unsolicited advice from complete strangers on the interweb is not terribly persuasive, but this worked for me. And every aspect of my life - relationships, work, recreation, etc - is better off for it.
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