I have always thought that I’m much better on my own. I get more accomplished. I take more risks, and I’m more in control. A salsa dancing instructor once told me I have “control issues.” He wasn’t kidding.
“Your decade of solo dance training has made it difficult for you to trust your partner,” he said. ”Relax and follow my lead.”
For most of my life, I have been highly uncomfortable following someone else’s lead in anything and everything.
“I don’t think I know how to do that,” I said. ”What if one of us messes up?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. ”We’ll still be dancing.”
A few years after that, a good friend of mine told me I would end up alone and unhappy if I didn’t let my walls begin to crumble. He pleaded with me one night after liters of wine flowed through our veins.
“Melissa, the older you get the harder it’s going to be to let your guard down,” he said. ”If you love him, why don’t you just find a way to tell him? He’s waiting for you.”
Suddenly, red sirens began to blare obnoxiously in my head and heart. That was my first wake-up call that I needed to change. Throughout adolescence and my twenties, I had created ocean-deep barriers so treacherous that not even the most cunning casanovas could navigate their way to my shore. The dichotomy between my mind and my movements is laughable because lack of out-word expression doesn’t make one’s feelings any less valid or real. It simply renders them unnoticed. I can write about the objects of my affection like there’s no tomorrow. I can sing and dance about them as if it’s going out of style. But sharing my emotions with the person that needs to experience the sentiment the most has always been difficult.
For awhile, I thought that perhaps I was emotionally challenged, and that maybe I just wasn’t meant to be in a relationship. But that’s just a cop-out. I relish relationships and interpersonal communication. I forge deep friendships often and wherever I go. I have soul-mates around the world that I’m in touch with on a regular basis. I had a six-year love affair that encompassed three cities, a marriage, a divorce, a reunion, and finally an end. For the most part, I go after what I want without thinking twice about it. My fire for excitement, bonding, and bliss has always burned unforgivingly. It’s my inability to just rest-easy, feel comfortable and safe, and be in a situation that doesn’t need to be fixed that blocks my heart and mind’s synchroncity.
Luckily, I’ve grown weary of wasting time. I’m understanding that to be hard on the outside merely projects how soft I am on the inside, so I may as well be soft on the outside, for better or worse. Deep within my heart’s trenches I have always known this.
Before I decided to move to San Francisco, a dear friend of mine said to me, “fear is the opposite of love.” I instantly realized that so much of what I’ve done with regard to my past relationships has been done out of fear. From now on, whenever I am fearful, I will try my hardest to act only out of love. I’m finding that it’s not nearly as scary as it looks, and it actually feels pretty good.
Sometimes it just takes a moment, a gesture, a touch, or a word to turn all the grayness into amber and yellow rays. I just made a friend who moves me simply by looking at me with the most distinct, pure, present, and perennial passion living in his eyes. There is no pretense. No pre-meditation. Nothing needs to be fixed. There is only joy. All the walls are crumbling, and for the first time in my life I have no desire to rebuild them. This is my “emotional culture.”
The following passage was written by Los Angeles-based writer AV Flox. It is one of the most beautiful, honest, and romantic truisms I have ever read.
There is so much to be said for those moments that catch us with our guards down. The walls of the cities of our interior take a long time to build up again and sometimes in our haste, we build them so they topple at the touch of wind. You are strong, darling, and worthy of love because you do not regret…(continue reading here.)
Comments on: "What Happens When the Walls Crumble? Growing Pains & Greatness." (2)
What a beautiful, wonderful piece. You are right about this hardness. I recently, too began working in this regard as well, if not knock down the walls, at least make some doors.
It also reminds me of a column I wrote about how dancing brought me back to life. During my marriage, I managed to somehow divorce my mind from my body. I kept thinking how on the computer, when you lose your wi-fi signal, you can repair your connection–but how do you repair your connection with yourself?
Dancing heals.
“This is not about the steps, this is about the music. Feel the music, connect with your partner. Come together with your partners and you will always know where to go, even if he does something new.” These words have more to do with love than any poem I have ever read. Somehow, that love, awakened me. It’s a slow process, but I feel it.
I feel alive again.
(I linked the column instead of my blog here, in case you haven’t read it and wish to.)
Thank you! The authenticity of your piece on Blogher is a beautiful ode to the value of trusting others and ourselves. I’m thrilled that I came across your blog during one of my ADHD moments, perusing the interwebs. Your writing has inspired me to publish insights, mishaps, and victories that I never would have had I not found your stories so moving.