about cages and tears and other depressing things

gosh, it was a rough day today. i don't cry very much, but when i do, it's quite a production. after all, it's been building and building, waiting behind the curtains for that one event that throws them back to start the show. there are no dress rehearsals for tears in my world. no sniffles and single tear drops trailing down my cheek. just floods.

i was able to wait until i was behind the wheel of my car before it began. even between sobs, as i took deliberate breaths in and out to even my breathing, my lips were quivering with an emotion too heavy to hold in my chest.

the whole way to my friend's house, i cried. i imagined myself coming down the walk to her front door and collapsing into a puddle in her arms at her greeting. but i coudn't do it. i couldnt be as vulnerable as i wanted to be. and i wanted to be, let me tell you. i did manage to be honest, to be what i felt in that moment without trying to control the hurt in my voice, the water welling behind my eyes, but it was a very deliberate, concentrated effort and i feel exhausted by it all.

my eyes have felt dry and heavy all day. even standing in line at the golden wok, i felt somewhat a shell of myself, having been emptied in a mazda protege 5 and a soft couch off of whilden. i felt like people could notice. the thing about crying, the thing about being vulnerable, is that all that stuff that you have fashioned into bricks and then stacked carefully one by one into a hefty retaining wall--what was the original thought? oh yes, the thing about crying is that your wall has been utterly demolished, and there is nothing between you and the world, between you and that person next to you who could do or say who knows what and you would have no defense against it. maybe that's why when the guy in front of me turned to ask me for directions to the panda express five miles away when you take a left off of bridford parkway onto west wendover, i stuttered and said i didnt know.

most of the time, this nakedness is terrifying. well, it always is. but...there was this one time that i spoke at a women's conference. it was really difficult to sit in front of those women and pour my heart out to a wide range of souls--close friends, new acquaintances, total strangers. after getting through my speech, some of it intelligible despite the tears, i experienced such a stripping of self, such a fragility that i was terrified when i stood to walk back to my seat among the crowd. who would i sit next to? what would they think of me--or worst, say to me--in response to this personal outpouring?

ah, it was so beautiful. i was immediately surrounded by unspeakable love and affection--friends who enveloped me with arms and hearts so quietly, so gently that i wanted nothing but to fall back into their warmth and light with no inhibitions. i dont think ive felt anything quite like it. it was a mysterious thing, this emotional filling up--so tangible that i felt the pouring into me like a physical substance. and it was because i was wide open and undefended: a garden stretching beautiful and natural into wide open space. i never would have felt such a saturation if i had been sitting securely behind my walls, quickly deflecting, making sure i didn't let anything in that could potentially weaken me or show me to be weak.

i dont know where i got this inclination to hide myself, to push away. when was the first time i raised a shield in my own defense? was it held in the tender hand of a 7 year old? when did it become a behavior, as much a part of me as my own fingers? in puberty? earlier? does everyone easily become an expert in isolation? is it a human thing, an American thing...a Laura thing?

ive been home since 1 and now at 10 i still havent unlocked this cage around my heart to talk to the one whom i desire to know me more than anyone else. ha ha, well, i was talking about my husband, but i just realized how closely that description matches someone else...

no, i havent been able to talk to him yet either.