The feeling of vulnerability. It’s when one has to be handled the carefullest, but also leave them space to break. It’s like a balloon, a bubble. To me, feeling vulnerable is teetering on the edge. You’re either going to keep it buried inside you, the cracks mended by invisible duct tape. The usual facade. You appear to be fine but you’re not. You implode. Or you’re going to snap, let it all go, and completely shatter. You explode. I think of it as a vase being knocked over by a rambunctious child. That image of the porcelain vase on the edge of the mahogany table, spinning ever so slowly, the terrified child holding their breath, their heart on the floor. It’s maudlin music combined with isolation. The taste of sadness in your tongue. The weight of your suffocated heart nestled inside your rising and falling chest. It’s nostalgic memories haunting you and inflicting more sadness instead of happiness. It’s the feeling of sinking with a broken life-vest on. It’s when you’re inspired to write incoherent paragraphs, pouring out yourself on the page. It’s being unable to finish your thoughts like.
I am incapable of understanding your actions. You eat porridge one day and muesli the next. You tell me you love me, but your voice is hollow and I have trouble hearing it through the many scarves which muffle your voice. Warm, warm, keep warm. You try to keep me warm, but I refuse. I kick off the blankets in my sleep, dreaming of freedom-painted fabric, and liberty bells. What is war? – I ask, and the conversation turns urgent. We gesticulate wildly, but our voices never exceed four. They are hushed, but you tell me everything that is wrong with the world and I tell you the same thing, looking into a mirror on my left. All this is, is intrigue and wild gesticulations and sweeping statements, urgent conversations behind the lampshade, reaching for a conclusion but finding only thin air.
Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to ‘show’ it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg’s adaptation of the Hays Office—the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement—is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: ‘Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.’ I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.
I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains„ deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
Thank you, as are you for writing such a thing, on a beautiful night.
Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love. ~ Zooey Deschanel
