I watched the Fifth Element last night. I’ve seen it before, so I sort of drifted in and out of consciousness; Amy’s delicate lips and fingers brushing me at intervals. I awoke near the end of the show for a few seconds, just enough to register one line from the movie.Â
- “Humans Act So Strange…”
That line has been close to my consciousness since I heard it. In the movie, the speaker refers to the fact that we build things just to destroy. It struck a mildly different chord with me, however.Â
Fighting the black depression that is hanging over me today, I hope I convey this properly.
We do act so strange. We live our lives in contradiction. We say things to our loved ones, hurtful things, that we would NEVER dream of saying to a person who we didn’t know and didn’t care about. We let strangers and acquaintances walk all over us, while we lash out at our dearest over perceived slights. We extend ourselves, travel great distances, re-arrange our schedules for the most tertiary of friends while it is almost impossible for us to take 30 minutes out of our day to drive and see our “one and only.”
We, almost as a race, promise our very lives to another individual from whom we will keep hidden our most personal thoughts and feelings. We hide the fantasies and desires, our inadequacies and fears, that which makes us vulnerable and special, from the very person who has sworn to shelter our hearts.
Where along the path did being strong suddenly equate being emotionally inaccesible? When did we start believing that being good to one another means having no flaws?Â
Or maybe this isn’t the case at all. Maybe, we have just been stabbed, bled, and molested so much by those who had professed their love that we simply cannot believe that anyone would ever be altruistic again.
So how do we prove ourselves? Walking that slippery trail lined with broken promises and shards of old truth, up to the heart of another, how can we ever differentiate ourselves from the butchers that came before?
Question: How?
Answer: Have no agenda. Have no needs. Be available. Be selfless. Be aware of their needs. Place your partner before everything. Make the first move, but never too early. Be strong. Be supple. Be perfect.
Who in this entire messed up world will EVER live up to a list like that?
Noone.
Then we are left with only one thing. Like Pandora with the feel of her gut twisting… dropping… wrenching it’s awful plunge into her shoes as she fell to her knees and stared into that near empty box, once so bright and pretty with it’s lace and ribbon trappings, now nearly bereft, devoid of all but one thing: Hope.
So we just deal with our loved ones barriers and baggage because we believe, against all rational proof, that underneath all that wreckage is a unique lovable individual better suited for us than anyone else. Even if we may never actually see them.
Great post! Well said and well thought out!
“Where along the path did being strong suddenly equate being emotionally inaccesible?”
It’s a defense mechanism. People get hurt. That’s unavoidable. If you get hurt enough times, it becomes easier to forego another stab by erecting a fortress around your heart than to take another mortal blow and try to fight your way back to some semblance of normality. You can’t erase the past when you meet “the one” and start anew with a clean slate. The past makes you who you are, probably makes you the person “the one” fell in love with.
The bravest thing a person can do is open themselves fully to someone and trust that that someone will nurture, rather than hurt them.
Great post, though a bit sad.
Personally, I know I’m not always ‘accessible’ with the ones I love simply because I love them so much I don’t want them to find my flaws. Recently I lied to my bf and said I didn’t have to work when really i was just skipping. A simple lie and so small but I regret it. Sometimes we don’t want to show our flaws only because we believe that the one we love will not be able to accept them and then they’ll leave us for someone they percieve to not have them.
sorry that last one was me. had to go back to a firefox browser and I didn’t notice it had automatically used that old sn.