Matchingsocks’s Weblog

Over the years, Smelly Melly and this girl seem to have developed a code to signal each other on their need for a listening ear. Most times when either calls the other, they start with a nursery rhyme and the other person, in grand spy fashion, will reply with the second line of a separate rhyme. For example, Smelly Melly will call and say, “Baa baa black sheep” and this girl might reply with, “How I wonder what you are?” Its an ongoing game that they play that amuses them endlessly since, despite their pact to not use those two rhymes, (Baa Baa Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), and use other rhymes (they have tried “Humpty Dumpty sat on the Wall” - ” Eating her curds and whey” to great hilarity), but that doesn’t quite happen so often.

Anyway, while most of their calls to each other are about the mundane day to day matters of love and life, they also do have their moments of “distress calls”. And they usually start like this, “Hey babe, do you have five minutes?” The voice is usually slightly sombre, on occasion tinged with a muted sigh or sob. The tone is soft and oddly heavy. There is an echo that reverberates through that speaks of a honest, open vulnerability, laid bare for the other to see. This is their way of calling for help, asking the other person to be the other’s container, the voice of reason and hope and, at the heart of it all, a manner of a life line to the soul.

Vulnerability leaves many of us deeply uncomfortable. We often mistake emotional openness- people who wear their heart on their sleeves- with a person comfortable with vulnerability. And while that is fair to say i some respect, vulnerability- this girl believes- comes from a place deep within. It is a stripped-bare moment and with the understanding that there is a high possibility of judgment coupled with the willingness to lay one’s heart, spirit and sometimes soul at another’s feet and believing, no, hoping- sometimes with more than just the slightest holding of breath- that the other person will gently, and loving mend it.

It takes a lot of courage for a person to be truly vulnerable. It takes a great deal more for a strong person, unused to leaning on anything for a crutch, or, for that matter, asking for help at all to fully let themselves be laid bare. It has got nothing to do with how much you love a person, for have we not seen couples deeply in love not honestly share their fears, secrets, and, wait for it, inner vulnerabilities. Some of us are so used to having to hold it all together, used to always having all the answers, used to keeping everything in our lives in check, dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, successfully lining all our ducks in a row. We are so used to doing and having it all that when it comes to being vulnerable, we fail.

To be honest, this girl is rarely vulnerable. She’s worked through most of her issues- yes, most, not all; she still has some issues to deal with- and her open book life means that she carries with her very little baggage. But in the quiet moments when life still becomes a tad more than she cares to carry on her tiny shoulders; in the dead of the night when small, insidious whispers can hasten into a hailing scream; in the ensuing dramatic hailstorm that is her life; this girl allows herself to be vulnerable with the select one or two people close to her. Most times, this girl doesn’t even say very much. Neither does she need loads of advice or life directions. Most times, this girl knows the score and knows what she needs to do.

All she truly needs, is for someone to be that safe space to allow her to simply be vulnerable. And for those that have given her that- you know who you are- she is infinitely blessed.