Can I actually handle having someone in the boat with me?

Thoughts on intimacy, vulnerability, and beating myself at my own game.

Recently I spent my whole therapy session talking about what kind of partnership I want, describing it like someone getting in a boat with me: “It’ll be like, ‘let’s row together,’ or ‘I’ll row while you rest’ or ‘let’s just float for a bit, I’m so happy to be in this boat with you,’ or ‘there’s a storm coming, we’re in this together.’” I was very proud and feeling valiant for this boat idea, the intensity of it, the ride or die-ness of it. “He wouldn’t get in the boat - he didn’t even understand why we were near a body of water.” There, I’d done it. I am this brave, smart, intense person with her teetery boat heading for the middle of the lake and the centre of an adventure; who is brave enough to get in with me? 

And of course in the last two minutes of my session, Therapist smacks me with, “It’s all well and good to ask for that, but you need to decide if you can actually handle someone getting in the boat with you.”

Well shit. So what you’re saying is I might have something to do with the fact that no one makes it in the boat with me. I might have something to do with the fact that I am still at the dock, on leg in, one leg holding me to land, proclaiming that no one can hack it like I can. Except of course those who have been ready, those who’ve seen the storm coming, those who have not been put off by my rickety boat with no safety gear, no afternoon snacks, no life jackets, me just winging it over here and calling myself a sailor.

This has been the obstacle in relationships for me, romantic and otherwise. Write my entire guts out and share my innermost thoughts and touch on the pulse of what makes us human and what makes us ache and what makes us feel alive? No problem, any day. Let someone see me on a bad day? Let someone into my needs and feelings? Let someone in and ask for a way they could inconvenience themselves in order to lighten my own load? You’re out of your mind. When I’ve realized my humanness, I’ve bolted. How sad. How human of me.

This love stuff is hard. Intimacy is hard. Vulnerability is hard. Closeness is hard. Impossible for some of us (I am the us in this scenario). But I’m trying. I’m trying.

I want to love. Fully. I want to show up as my full self. I’m not just talking about romantic love. I want to bring my full self into every room. I want to stop being a martyr. I want to risk being boring or misunderstood or too intense or not fun enough in favour of being fully me, in the hopes that we may meet each other as ourselves, that we may see each other fully and not flinch and offer softness to every corner of ourselves. 

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xo jess.