Sometimes vulnerability is see-through. It’s covered in cellophane and easily breakable. It’s fragile, hot to touch, and laced with shame.

An upsetting pattern: I let you hold my hand and we jump in together, but when I sense my jump was too far—I’ve lost my ability to properly communicate—you become exceedingly distant to me and that feels frightening. I want to suddenly drown. Drown out the vulnerable pieces of me that tried to let you in but more or less failed at achieving mutual understanding.

My thoughts and my words and my emotions usually make exact sense in my head but sometimes they come out so fragmented, leaving pieces of me feeling completely broken.

Vulnerability is magnetic. It will pull you in but just as fast repel you. Shame pushes, love pulls.