Did I post what I did yesterday to get attention? Well, yes, I did. I wrote the piece on vulnerability and then was looking for a photo. First, I searched online. Then I realized that I could not post a photo of someone else for a post about vulnerability...
That led me to my camera roll.
And as I flipped through the myriad of photos, I looked for one of me that was actually vulnerable or at least reflected it. I came across the one I posted. I immediately didn’t want to post it. It was too risqué, it was too open, it was not flattering. It was everything that I didn’t want to post. So I knew that was the photo. Fuck I hate it when that happens.
I was terrified. Of judgment. Of commentary. Of vitriol. I was worried about backlash. My kids. My mom. A lot of things actually. But it was the bravest, most vulnerable thing I could do in that moment.
See I am always walking that fine line between revelation and obfuscation. I want you to see me, but only what I choose to reveal. I want to be known, but only those parts of me that I want you to know. I want to manage your image of me at every turn. Controlling what you think, do or say where I am concerned.
But that is not living. That is image management and my whole life has been about that for a long time. I want you to see what I want to reveal but that is only a very surface image of who and what I am. I didn’t start this whole endeavor to hide anymore. In fact, this whole blog has been a forum where I can get to know me, and then to find the courage to share that with you.
Intimacy, vulnerability, connection, honesty. Those are all things I crave but find to be very foreign and distant concepts for me. I do not know how to do them because when you have set up your life to conjure up images to the contrary of reality, it is very hard to live an authentic life.
In truth, while I do care what you think, I care more about what I think. I am sure you have your ideas, judgments and discernments. And they are important. I wouldn’t put this out here everyday if I didn’t believe that to be so. But in the end, it is the opinion I hold of myself, my character and my manner of living that matters most of all.
I really wish I could figure out myself and this life by keeping it all on lock down. Keep it to myself and just be quiet. I really do. But that isn’t my path. And the secrets I have kept in my life have almost always been my undoing...so I try to live today without the secrets.
And I do want attention. I don’t want more than my share. But as someone who walked the earth terrified to be seen, called out, noticed, it became time for me to take my spot in this world. And sometimes, it is going to appear like a shameless grab for attention. And perhaps it is. Perhaps that is just the way it is in the world today.
But I feel like the world is an ever expanding image management war. And I cannot live that way. Sure, I want you to think well of me. Sure I want you have some interest in me and my life. But at the end of every day, it is how I show up and what I reveal that is the best testament to a life well lived. I fuck it up. I fix it and then I fuck it up again. And I share it all because I want to normalize that living is hard. Loving is challenging and being who you really are, not the version you want to peddle and sell, is the only true value you have in this world.
We are not what we do, but we aren’t not what we do. Beneath every well coiffed exterior is a person with blood and bone and sinew and soul. And we burn to be seen, heard, felt and loved. Every one of us. And we have a lot of maladaptive ways to attempt to achieve that...all of us. No exceptions.
So I offered up what I did yesterday in yet another attempt to be brave and claim a little attention for me. I own that. And in today’s world, photos, more than words, are the attention grabbers. So I posted what I did. And it was hard and scary and intimate. And I didn’t want to. I have a spent a life time being ashamed of my body, and hid my thoughts and feeling deep within the exterior I was trying to perfect and always falling short.
I am 55. That is how I look. This is who I am. And there is absolutely nothing, other than my current living of my life that I can do about it. So I am attempting, quite imperfectly, to do just that every day and have the courage to show up and let you see me, put it out there for you to hate, revile, loathe or judge. And somehow in this crazy process I find more acceptance for who I actually am, instead who I want you to think that I am.
And for today, that is going to be called progress. We all want attention. And that includes me. And there were decades that I tried to get it by saying that I didn’t want it or need it. But I do. I need attention, love, praise, understanding and being seen just as much as the next person. And the thing that has fucked me over a million times is my own failure to be able to own that I do.
So today I own it. Do with it what you will. Know though that I am really trying to live a good life, be a decent human and show up for my life and the lives of those I love while attempting to hang onto nothing. Grasp nothing. To be open, vulnerable and intimate with life as it comes my way. And to believe and live trusting that all that is meant for me will come and all that isn’t will not.
Some days that is a very hard ask...but it is getting easier by being willing to reveal all the things about me that I am so afraid you will not like. I am doing it anyway.
Again...still
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