We all just wanted to be reached, connected to, touched. In spite of the walls we build, the lines we draw in the sand, the arm’s length we hold everyone at. We all just want that one person who “gets us”, whether it’s within the first ten minutes of a date or years and years of knowing someone. We just want someone we can make eye contact with across the room who will read our minds and know what we’re thinking, who will pull us in close when we need it without having to ask. Someone who has seen the baggage we lug along behind us and has gone to get a cart instead of getting on the next plane out of town.
I know it’s true for me. Today, I was realizing that, as much as I want to be connected to and touched by someone, my own walls are very high and the line is very deeply drawn in the sand. I have been taking down some of the bricks in the wall (finally found a use for the stupid clowns but their big feet slow them down) and recently have begun to try to erase the line in the sand because I truly, finally feel that I’m wanting, needing, desiring to have someone share at least a part of my life right now. And it’s very frightening. I’ve been pining for someone while holding the thought of that someone at bay. Pull in, push away. Oh, he’s close now so I’ll find a reason, a way, an excuse to make him run away or put my arm out so he can’t get too close. Because if he does get too close, then I’ll have to lower the wall and reduce the line. And as much as I have claimed I want to do that, taking down that first brick has been very hard.
And watching those around me really illustrates that. I have two friends who are tentatively moving forward in a relationship of some sort right now but I can see the reticence and tentative quality to this budding relationship. Can’t put a name on it yet because then it will be something real and concrete and really have to be identified. As long as there is no name to what it is, it’s safe and it’s fine and it’s “easy.” As soon as there is a name for it, then it becomes something else and might lead to something else and then there’s the future and all that comes with it and sharing each other’s baggage and being counted on for something instead of just keeping it loose and… oh, god! So they both agree with the conceit and move happily through their… whatever it is. They have found someone – no matter how tenuous and cautious – to begin to scale the wall with and for and to help them begin to make moves towards really reaching out and connecting with someone.
Then I watch one of my fav guys seeking his way. He’s a challenge, this one. His walls are very high and very steep and covered with thorns and all kinds of things, yet there are pockets and openings in his walls that lead into the labyrinth he has so carefully constructed over the years. Open enough that you can see beyond the walls to the beauty and the wonder that is his heart. Close enough that you can almost touch the center of him, yet he can watch you from the turrets and decide when and how he can meet you as opposed to you meeting him. Yet there is a quality to him of wanting someone to leap over those labyrinth walls and climb the thorns and push through the gates to get to the turret to free him from his comfortable, well-appointed castle. He reaches others, as is his choice, but makes it impossible to reach him. It makes me very sad, because I think his castle inside is probably incredible and the possibilities for sharing this life and this joy are immense. It’s just tiring breaking off the thorny branches and it’s hard to keep wrapping bandages around your hands as you try to fight your way through the maze. I’m curious to see what would happen if the walls were breached and he had no choice but to climb down out of the turret and face me. I’m not sure I’ll ever know. In the meantime, the best I can do is stand on top of the walls and wave, letting him know I am there, whenever he wants to be reached, and that this friendship will survive the traps and the tricks that he has built and that I will enjoy the scenery whenever he chooses to come down and join me and walk with me for a while through the thorny places of his heart, as he has journeyed through mine.
Another friend is seeking something she cannot define. She has a beautiful life – or so it seems from the outside. She has someone who has committed to sharing his life with her and yet she seems to need another connection. She pretends she’s happy with her permanent connection but always seems to be on the look out for something more, someone else to reach out to her. She is always holding out her hand, desiring a different kind of connection than she has, stirring the very dangerous fires around her, then running back to what she has when she has stirred the fires too much. I’m not sure she is even aware she is doing this but I can see her sadness and her emptiness and her wanting to find a way to fill that which is not being filled by her current connection. And it’s hard to watch, because it feels as though she is stealing something from those who reach out to her because she is not able to reach back, or she runs in fear at what she has brought on because she doesn’t realize she has reached out that far. Then she hides back in her life, rebuilding the walls between her and the outside world and even her and her inside world It’s sad, because I think she could be happy if she would only accept what she has or, on the other hand, leave that broken place and go out and find that real connection she needs, instead of keeping within the comfort zone of what she has.
The funny thing is that the people who surround my life right now have given me much in the way of connection. I have an incredible set of friends who fill that void, who make the empty, lonely nights easier because of their emails, their Myspace presence, their silly text messages, etc. There is great depth in the connections that I share with these people and I don’t know what I would do without them. They keep me sane and filled and satisfied and let me know that there is something there, someone there, who is connected to me, who I can reach out to when I need to, and who have reached out to me as well. And this connection is a valued and appreciated one – or many, actually. I am eternally grateful that God has provided me with these folks – and you all know who you are – and I’m glad we can be there for each other as we build our walls and tear them down, as we weep over missed opportunities or frustrating choices or loves that we have lost. I am glad we can tell each other the white lies of there being a connection somewhere for us all, that we will all find it eventually and that we should stay optimistic, even when shoes are dropping and all signs are pointing south instead of north. That connection is invaluable and one that can never be replaced.
And a little connecting was going on tonight and I quite enjoyed that. It was fun to play with the guys tonight and get played back with. It’s the first time in a long time someone has put out that playful hand and tested the thickness of the wall and the depth of the line. Not very far into the testing, but at least a bit of a step towards the wall was very nice.
But I look forward to the day when I have again that someone who “gets me,” who holds me without fail and whose eyes light up when I enter a room. My heart skips a beat currently for someone but I’m not sure about his heart and its beat. But I want that connection, I need that connection, I am now ready to seek out that connection, as terrifying and frightening as it is, because looking at my life without it is more frightening.
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