Vulnerable

It’s strange how much easier it is to open up to strangers than it is our friends, and then, only if they don’t get too close. We let people in until they reach a comfortable orbit, then hold them there with our gravity, keeping them drawn in and close so they don’t spin off into the empty void, but never close enough that they might flash through the atmosphere that guards us. We so rarely let true seeds of life settle in. And yet, we broadcast ourselves out into the nether, into the open maw of virtual words and shout in a voice so loud it would shame thunder, yet are barely heard, the space is so vast. But those stars out there, who listen, our secrets seem so safe with them, so open and yet, still tiny pinpricks of light in our lives and our loneliness. And the secrets! The words! Tiny vessels soaring into the universe full of our emotions, colonizing worlds far beyond sight, traveling so fast it may as well be the speed of thought. How good if feels to put them out there, to stand open and naked in front of the galaxy around us, to bathe in the Milky Way. How fast we withdraw, call ourselves home and cover ourselves as if our darknesses embarrassed us. As if the curves of our hearts and the contours leading toward their soft beating required the modesty of a Puritan dressed for winter. 

We withdraw in fear, the dread enemy that we cower from as someone passes too close, so close they might see so deep into us that they may see things, good things, bad things, that we may never see for lacking their perspective. There’s the fear that we’re not good enough. The fear that if we draw too close, the moons we’ve gathered will break free from our orbit and their beauty lost to sight. Fear that for once, we’ll get exactly what we want. . . and it won’t be what we wanted after all.

This adventure is hard, it is frightening, but courage isn’t a lack of fear, but standing in its face and saying, "Here I am, explore me, be close. This is who I am, stay or go as you will. I will allow you to be one of the dark gods that come into the tiny clearing that is my soul, my life. May I have the courage to let you come and go. And how, oh, how, I would come and go from yours."