I was recently asked to think about the time or times in my life that I have felt the most known, the most understood.
I can tell you about times I have tried really hard to be understood, and I wasn't. I can tell you about other times that I have hidden from people who genuinely wanted to know me. I can tell you about times that I talked and talked and talked, explaining my life away, desperately trying to be heard and ultimately known. Some of those attempts proved unsuccessful. Some of them seemed successful for a while and then somehow lost their place.
I thought you knew. I thought you understood. Now I'm not so sure. The success stories are still in play. Being known, being understood, feeling like I belong in spite of myself. It's a process. It's seemingly never ending. Partially, because I am always changing and rearranging. Part of the process is me. You can't all-of-the-sudden know me, because I don't all-of-the-way know myself. I am changing and I am learning to embrace that. But this change has implications not only for how I understand and deal with myself, but how I am seen and understood, how I am known by other people, the ones that are willing to walk with me. I am thankful for those people. How precious it is to feel known and loved. But there is so much fear.
I think that I probably don't have that many new fears. Fears are neither created, nor destroyed; that's the theory, right? I've been running from the same things for years. Maybe there are three of them, maybe there are more. I think they travel in packs, my fears. They walk around together, stomping their feet so that they sound bigger than they actually are. And some of them are pretty big to begin with. At least I think they are, but I've never actually seen them. My monsters are not so historic. They are old, but these guys are still here; they're still around. They won't let me go; they won't let go of my hand. These monsters are old, but don't let that fool you, they are not frail. They are strong. I know, because I give them their strength.
They shape just about every aspect of my life. They bend and move to fit whatever scenario I am facing, but they are absolutely the same every time. The same things that hold me back as an artist, as a creator are the very same things that hold me back everywhere else. In school, in relationships, in the way I drive my car and eat my food. They shape the way I dress and write, but they also shape the way I talk, the way I move from one room to the next, the way I sit at the kitchen table.
Please don't look at me. I am afraid of being exposed. Please don't reject me. I am afraid of you not liking me anymore, not loving me anymore, even the smallest piece of me. Please don't laugh or mock or ridicule. Worst of all, please don't misunderstand. I want to be loved and heard and understood, but I want to maintain the right to hide, to be invisible. Sometimes the thought of you knowing is too much. For better or for worse, like it or not, it is out there now. I am afraid of being known. I am afraid of what being known might mean. I said it and now I can't take it back. I can't turn around. I can't change the focus, even though every bone in my body would rather talk about you. I'd rather talk to my monsters, about what they think than show them what I am thinking. Yeah, part of it is about not wanting to be rejected, but part of it is just me wanting that for myself. My independence, my ability to remain anonymous, mysterious, without understanding.
You are my monster. You are my monsters. I don't want to feel exposed, and I can't let you see these things without complete and utter exposure happening. This is my mind, my heart. It feels like it's the essence of who I am, my very being. I don't really mind what you think about it (not really true), but to show it to you means I give you a part of myself. Sometimes I am not sure I have that many more pieces left to give. I want to hoard them, store them up, save them, keep them somewhere safe so that they are that - safe. So that they are not misunderstood, marginalized, rejected, sometimes even so that they are not praised, puffed up.
Maybe they are pretty, but maybe they're not. Maybe they're actually just Cs. Don't tell me they're As, when really they're just Cs. If Cs are what I have, if Cs are what I am, then Cs are beautiful, then Cs are what I was created to be. How dare you tell me that I wasn't. How dare you tell me that I was made for more, or that I was made for less. This is all. This is it. This is what I have. I am terrified to be exposed. What I have is mine. I give it value. I don't want your value. I don't want what you think about it. It just is and that's all. Allow me to exist, and don't try to change me. Don't try to make me more pretty or more relevant. Just let me exist. I'm afraid that if I am exposed you won't let me do that, you won't let me exist. You'll force me into something I'm not, something I don't want to be, a lie. Please let me be.
I'll give you one last chance to try. I'll give you one more shot to do what I am terrified you might actually do.
There is something so profoundly comforting and nurturing about feeling deeply and intimately known. You've taken the time to figure me out. You really see. You understand, or at least you're trying to. Regardless of whether or not you like it all, there is something to be said for being seen and understood.
"It's a sweet, sweet thing: standing here with you & nothing to hide."
There are things to learn there, in that place of true and abundant light. Nothing to hide. That sounds so free. All part of the process. Honesty, commitment, vulnerability, intentionality. Those things all have to be there for this kind of process to play out. The perfect storm of factors coming together so that I can finally show you. Here you go. This is it. This is what I have for you. That process is continual. That process can only occur in the context of safety. Trust is there, but also boldness. This is long term. This doesn't happen over night. How sweet when we get here. How true and beautiful and valuable that we ended up here. Who would have thought?
I love this first kind of being known. I love it because it is something that we choose to do. This is the kind that heals us. I am covered in light. I think there's a second kind. It's equally as valuable, equally as redemptive, but starkly different. This kind takes you off guard. You don't know it's happening until it's over. It blindsides. It knocks the wind out of you. I can't believe that just happened. I didn't give you clearance to go there, to do that, to know what you know.
If you're reading this, and you have at all followed what I am trying to say, then you know me in this way. And that scares me, but it also sets me free. It also heals and legitimizes me. Thank you, but know that I'm a little freaked out.
Shock and relief. I cannot hide anymore, and that is hugely freeing. I can breathe, because the waiting is over. The cat is out of the bag. There's no going back. Am I sure I want to do this? I don't know, but I know it is good.
Two weeks ago I took four midterms in two days. Ew. Then, I had Spring Break. Then, Spring Break was over, and I went back to school. My Lit professor kindly warned us at the beginning of class on Monday that he would be handing our midterms back at the end of the class period.
I had all but forgotten about that midterm. I had taken Spring Break to mean a week of detachment from the reality of my life. I left school and the routine that I do every week behind and I dove head first into the last Spring Break I'll ever have. My teacher, standing at the front of the room talking about midterms sucked me back into the world that I live in, my reality.
It's a Lit class. Studies in Fiction. For the exam we got three prompts to choose from and we wrote one essay. That was it. As my professor continued to talk about themes in our papers and the average grade, I began to remember my own paper. I wrote about a novel by J.D. Salinger,
Franny and Zooey. I wrote about Zooey's desire in the novel to overlook the depravity in himself and others, the desire to focus on the good within each individual. I wrote about the pain and hurt that is in and around Zooey. I wrote about how he lives in the middle of one great big pile of brokenness. He cannot escape it. It comes from within and just fills every second of his days. I argued that Zooey wants people (specifically, his sister, Franny) to focus on the innate beauty that everyone possesses, because that is what we each need reminding of, not the darkness, not the ugliness.
I was writing about this character in the story, things he was wrestling with. But as I wrote, the words poured. I was writing until the very last minute of the class period. It felt like I had just taken a small part of myself and laid it down on the exam. This blue book, a mirror to my soul. I handed my professor this little piece of my heart, and then I began Spring Break, not thinking twice about it.
I created this thing, an essay. Someone might call it art. I am not that person, but I feel comfortable calling it my, "creation." I did make it. It came from me. I gave it life. I gave it meaning and substance. I molded it. I wrote and wrote for an hour and a half and then it was done, the final product. I don't feel this way often, especially with papers I write for school, but I was happy with it. I was confident handing it in, because it mattered. It meant something to me. Ideas always matter, but this time I liked the form that my ideas had taken.
My final product looked familiar. My final product looked a lot like something I had seen before. My final product reflected not only the ideas I had about this particular novel, but it reflected my own desires, my own hopes, my own dreams and ambitions. This was a piece of myself. Never has the creation process seemed so clear to me. All of the sudden, as my teacher was standing up in front of the class, talking about extra credit points, it clicked. I do this, not because I have some obsession with writing, or creation, but because this is who I am. This is not something that I give life to. This has life because it is a part of me. Its life is not separate from my own. We are one. My creation and me. This thing that I wrote is a very real part of me. This is a way for me to be known.
As class came to an end, he began to hand back our exams. Suddenly, I felt afraid. Again, these monsters came stomping around the corner. "Surely he won't remember my essay. He's graded 100s of papers this week," I told myself. "You're safe. You're hidden." All the while, I can feel the vibration from the monsters' stomps.
He called my name. It was my turn to collect my exam, my paper. It was time to take that little piece of myself back. "Finally," I thought. I reached for my exam. We stood there, my professor and I, each with a firm grip on my paper. He engaged eye contact. My stomach hurt. I couldn't think about anything outside of the fact that I might throw up on this man. "This was really very good," he said.
"thank you," I said, in what I am sure was the tiniest voice anyone has ever heard (if he even heard it at all). And then I ran away.
That was one of the most intimate moments I have ever had. That eye contact felt like a looking glass into the deepest part of me. Exposure at its finest. This man that I do not know outside of the context of this class now knows more of me than some people that I see every week. It had nothing to do with what he thought of my paper. Was I glad that he liked it? Duh. Especially, because he hands out the grades and I am a fifth year senior hoping to graduate at some point. The praise and encouragement was nice, but the intensity came from being heard, understood, seen, and known.
I wasn't ready for it. It completely blindsided me. But it also somehow made me feel legitimate. It made me feel like a human being. Somehow him seeing that part of me, made me real.
To be known. To be understood. To be seen. I don't think I live my life in hiding, but part of me likes the idea of being able to hide. When that option disappears, it's scary, regardless of whether or not I see it coming, whether or not I welcome it.
Maybe that has to happen if I want people to read the things that I write, and maybe that has to happen if I want to write things that are worth reading.
