Vulnerable Me

 About a week ago we discussed vulnerability in one of my writing classes. The class started with some uncomfortable shifting in seats and possibly some eye-rolls. However, it turned out well, and we had a good discussion. Maybe it's just the dynamic of a classroom setting, but most students left agreeing with the professor's main point: we must learn to be vulnerable.

While writing my short story for that same class last weekend, I was struggling with the ending. I will point out to you here that to talk about this I must make myself vulnerable. So, I was writing my short story, trying to figure out where I went with the ending because my professor didn't find the first draft believable. In the first draft, my main character finds out she is pregnant after a rare and accidental one-night stand, and decides, since she is pretty fresh out of college, to get an abortion. I just couldn't let her go through with it and had to find a way out, so I had her call the baby daddy at the prodding of her roommate to ask for some help with the decision. He, of course, is far from okay with the thought of abortion and offers to raise the child if she will only carry to term, which ultimately causes the main character to change her mind and not get an abortion.

Don't worry, I now see where the story went wrong. I think I did at first, too. But I was having a hard time really being open to taking a risk in this story. I decided that a risk had to be taken, and while I was re-working the end of the story, the end became a story of it's own, and it is now the beginning of the piece. Yup, I chucked out the whole first draft, and basically, started over. All because I was willing (finally) to become vulnerable. In allowing myself to potentially be hurt by taking a risk, I actually wrote a much better story... which would be tooting my own horn if I didn't know from the writing process that it really is a better story.

Our culture tends to think of vulnerability as synonymous with weakness. It makes sense, considering the dictionary definition: capable or susceptible to being hurt or wounded; open to moral attack, criticism, temptation (definition from dictionary.com).

Vulnerability is the main topic of Brene Brown's Ted Talks, which can be found on the Ted Talks website or on YouTube. Brene Brown studies shame for a living, and found that while dealing with shame one must become vulnerable. She is pretty inspiring and I would recommend taking the time to check out some of her speeches.

Now, we have established the definition of vulnerability, but does that make it synonymous to weakness? Yes and no, I think. If you've ever looked in a thesaurus you are aware that looking up the definitions of words is also important; not every word listed as a synonym actually has the meaning you may be looking for. So, where vulnerability is synonymous to weakness, it is not necessarily weakness.

In order to be vulnerable, you need to be willing to make yourself susceptible to weakness - to being hurt. These days we work really hard to close ourselves off and be strong so that we can't be hurt by anyone; we won't allow anyone to hurt us. But in order to be real, and according to Brene Brown in order to be truly happy and free, we need to learn to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability is honesty. Openness. In being vulnerable we do open ourselves up to be hurt, but we also learn to trust that way, too. Meaningful relationships can't be built through a wall. To develop a truly strong relationship with anybody - a friend, a potential dating relationship, a therapist, even - we must be vulnerable.

In opening up we learn the freedom of trusting people, and find little pieces of ourselves on the way.

2000 Page Views!

Well hello there. After weeks of learning how to juggle life (and dropping things many times), I have some (at least to me) exciting news. My blog has had 2000 page views... as of today! It's also been somewhere around a year now since I started this blog. How lucky was I to log on and see this perfect number.

In celebration, I will go out to dinner this weekend.

Actually, I was already going to do that. This weekend is in fact Mr. Wonderful's birthday. Really, I'm so excited I could poo. (Name that quote in the comments below! Feel awesome for a day.)

I am finally getting into a rhythm being back in school, and thank the good Lord above, because I really felt like I was sinking. Drowning, actually, in paperback textbooks and guided reading assignments. Oh, and the poetry, Lord help me with the poetry!

I used to love writing poems. Really, I did. Until I found out that I suck at it. Does it matter how the "conventions" are if people legitimately like it already? Seriously... my self confidence has really taken a hit in my poetry class. And to be honest, I don't even like some of the "professional writer" poems that we read in class. They're dry. They're boring. They don't mean anything more to me than the stuff I write matters to my professor.

There are some really good poets, with poems so cleverly designed I can probably only dream of ever writing like them. When I try, oh boy... let's just say when a wanna-be poet sees a "C" on her first poem for poetry class, the emotion that gushes forth isn't pretty. I mean, come on, think poet here. Emotion... yeah. You'd think a good poem would come of that, but no, just goober and snot, and angry words on a page. Nobody wants to read your anger. Frustration, maybe, injustice, for sure. Angry words written to a college professor, nope!

Not to make you think poetry class is my life or anything. Poetry doesn't even take up a corner of my life, it's like 10%. Probably less, even. It's just the one that has broken me the most, maybe. The other classes are much more time-consuming and technical, and I won't burden you with the load of information I cram into my poor brain's throat every day. (Brains don't eat, I know this, but I'm a writing major, not biology, and just take in that visual, okay? Now you're getting it.)


I'm hoping sometime soon, I'll be able to clean my apartment and invite some friends over. Seriously, I haven't cleaned at all since we moved in (not that we've been home to make a mess), and I also haven't spent time with any of my dear ladies in over a month!

Oh, except for my dear German who was visiting last month! I'm so glad I could have her stay with me the last week. It was so much fun comparing how the school systems here and in Germany are so different. I so wish I would have had less work to do while she was staying with me.

Something must change about that. Soon. Very soon, things will be different. My apartment will be clean and the laughter of beautiful women and the smell of cheesy garlic bread and spaghetti will fill it.

So, as I have a battle of wills with God and my husband, who both tell me to do things contrary to what I would like to be doing (i.e. not suffering through schoolwork), I wish you all the best in your many endeavors. May you feel perfectly and pleasantly whelmed, nothing more, nothing less.

Here's to the next year of blogging.

Cheers to You if You Find This Post

If you are reading this, congratulations. Nobody was meant to find this, but I guess you were, because you did. You've found an easter-egg post. Yay you!

I was walking down the hall at work the other day and noticed my reflection in a window as I passed a dimly-lit room. As I don't normally see myself walking, and it was from profile view, I noticed something I had never noticed before. In a fleeting moment, I saw what my butt looks like when I walk.

It was an interesting thing, I must say. Now, I don't pay much attention to anyone's butt, but I couldn't help but think about them for awhile after seeing mine. A few different thoughts went through my head, primarily the following:

Butts are interesting things.
Almost beings in themselves.
The way the wiggle and jiggle
And giggle as they follow along.
They go to-and-fro
When we walk slow
And bounce up-and-down
At a brisk pace;
Not quite with the rest of the body
Kind of just in their own way
As if having a mind of their own
Shown in their refusal
To conform to our movements.

Yes, there you have it, something of a poem about butts. That's right, you've never really seen it all.

10-mile Mark

So, this week I have been offered two jobs, neither of which I have started. The out-of-school time youth worker position was just offered to me, and two days ago I went to orientation for the substitute TA job and got my I.D. I told the youth worker employer I would call her back. Now it's time to think think think. I wish I had a straight answer so I knew which job to take.

Obviously, this decision would be much easier if I had experience in at least one of the jobs. I do still have employment for the next two weeks so I figure I'll go through with that either way, and hopefully by then I'll have  a clearer grasp of which job suites me. Prayer is always helpful, guys. Please pray for clarity in this decision for me.

So the birthday/new job celebration was grand. We had our free pie and went and ate our favorites at Olive Garden, and also grew up a bit and ordered dessert for the first time. We had never tried an Olive Garden dessert, though we always wanted to, but since we were feeling less poor than usual we went ahead and picked something to share. We ordered the zeppoli (little Italian donuts, like an Italian version of the French beignets, unless you don't know what that is, then I can't help you), it came with chocolate sauce, it was delicious.

While we were dating, I would give G the little notebook I always keep in my purse for his birthday. Literally just days before we met, I had been at Target with a great friend of mine (this was my senior year in high school) and she told me, jokingly, that if I was good she would by me a treat. I think she needed something from the school supplies section, which would be how the tiny notebooks caught my eye, but I remember picking up a little one that said  "notes" on the cover and falling in love. She bought it for me as my treat.

I kept it in my purse as a place to put any little thoughts that came to mind when I wasn't near a computer. Days later I met G at an orchestra festival and we stayed up all night talking. The week after that I started writing at least once a day in that notebook. When his birthday rolled around over half a year later I realized the notebook was almost completely filled with thoughts and poems about him, so I wrapped it with his gift and gave it to him. I replaced it with a new little notebook, and the next year gave him that one as well. He got me a slightly bigger notebook for my birthday the following year, one that didn't fit in my purse, and it has taken longer to fill. However, for his birthday last year I wrote him a poem about his proposal and gave that to him. He loved it.

Nearly a year ago I was in a graphic design class for which the final project was to create and publish three books of our own. You can see them above. Since I already had all this poetry and other writings, I used it. I gave it to G as a wedding gift, and they now reside by our bed. We open them up and read them every now and then, and he still has the notebooks along with all the random torn out pages of other notebooks that I gave him once upon a time. So, here's a little treat for you, a poem from that very first notebook:

Eskimo Kisses

Our faces have been
This close so many times
But all that ever touch
Are our foreheads and noses.
I love the way
You hold me, and
I can't help but wonder
If your kisses would feel
The same as I always imagine.

Blog #10, done! Milestone today!