[sheesh. it's about dang time i put something up, after leaving that embarrassing cliff-hanger up there for so long. anyway, as promised...]
this is likely not what you're thinking. just hear me out.
anyone may feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, as i'm only one person, but this seems to be, if not the greatest desire, at least one of the greatest desires of everyone's heart. it is ingrained in us from birth, and lack of it, or the breaking of it, is what causes the most painful experiences. our view of this defines our views and motivations on friends, family, dating, sex, religion, or even just daily activities. essentially, our experiences with (and consequent views of) intimacy shape our very core.
i have some examples of this that sort of show what i mean:
1. a few months ago, i had a dream. one of my friends from
music was sitting next to me on my couch as i chatted on gmail with
another friend across the country. (i don't know why i was doing this,
but it seemed perfectly normal and sensible at the time.) i think they
knew each other (they did in the dream anyway). suddenly, my friend who
was sitting next to me asked me if he could read the other chats i had
had with the other friend, for the purpose of getting to understand me
better through them. i was so tickled that i let him. at this point, i woke up. i had
trouble getting back to sleep because i was so giddy about having him
care that much (kind of like the moment you find out that one of your
friends has been blog-stalking you).
2. tonight i faced one of my fears. for my music theory class, we have to record ourselves singing solfege out of a book. although this is not particularly difficult for me (and i'm starting to dread it less), it is something i generally hate to do while i'm around others, because i'm ridiculously self-conscious when i sing. i want to be good at it, but i haven't spent enough time developing that skill to sound as good as i want, and my lack of confidence only worsens the problem.
for whatever reason (probably a desire to spend more time getting to know people, or maybe even just an excuse not to spend the evening in my dorm room), i agreed to work on my solfege recording with a few classmates tonight. when it was my turn to record, the same thing happened that almost always happens when i make an effort to sing well in front of people: that is, my stomach started doing somersaults, my throat went all dry, my lungs shrank to about 1/16 their normal capacity, and my voice came out shaky and faint. this was pretty obvious to everyone, and my voice was barely audible on the recording, so my classmates refused to let me go on. they played hymns on the piano and forced me to sing louder than the playing. when i couldn't, they came alongside me and sang the other parts of the hymn harmonies. i almost cried because i was so overwhelmed--trying to recover from nervousness while simultaneously touched by their determination to help me get through it. being that vulnerable sucked, but knowing that it didn't matter was well worth it.
3. i remember one night when i was a junior in high school. i had had some unpleasant experiences between friends and family, and chose to keep it quiet, to say nothing of the situation to anyone. i did not want to face their misunderstanding or their lightness or their judgment. this was my own problem, and eventually i would just get over it. but eventually i couldn't stand it anymore. it was breaking me down from the inside out ("tearing me apart, Lisa!"). so i told two of my most trusted friends, on whom i could count to understand what i was saying. it was one of the hardest things i've ever done. i felt bare, naked. my own guilt, those things that had hurt me so badly, all the things i had been afraid to let anyone see, all out on the table. but my healing did not start until then.
i think that almost everyone, if not everyone, has a past, or secrets, or things about them that they perhaps would rather people not know--things that are hidden. sometimes they're even just small things, like personality quirks (like the sorts of things i have hypothetical conversations with other people about). yet these things do not passively stay locked away in an internal prison cell. they long to get out, to be set free. they long to be found out by someone who wants badly enough to know them, who will not disdain or condemn them. i speak (er... write) from only one perspective, but i think that we all want to be known like that, completely, with all our strengths and flaws, all our personality, all our past, all our vulnerability. complete openness. but we're just too afraid that those we let in might not like what they see, that somehow we won't measure up to everyone else's standards.
