Vulnerability for the Win
In 2014, I started a blog called Sex After Marriage. I was going through the transformation one does after coming out of an 18-year marriage with a man that I met at 17 years old. I was finding out who I was. I started this blog to chronicle my journey. I figured that if I was inspiring myself, I would surely inspire others.
In 2024, it’s now been 10 years. I thought it might be time to republish the blog with my “10-Year Take”. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s changed and what has stayed the same. This is a gift to myself as I come into my 50th year on this planet, the same age my mom lost her 2-year battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer. In some ways, it feels like I’m on borrowed time. In other ways, I feel like I’m completing her incomplete journey. Mom, you are missed and I’m not sure I would have gotten here if I hadn’t had to feel the loss of you. Thank you for reading.
Dated January 20, 2015
Question #17: What is your most treasured memory?
I knew I would cry. He knew I would cry. It had been a week. I could practice my answer all I wanted, and I couldn’t take the emotion out of it. “At the end of my son’s 5th birthday party, I told my mom goodbye twice. I will always remember that. I said my goodbyes twice. She left the party, and when she got home, she died. We knew she was terminal, but you just never think it’s going to actually happen.” He leaned forward as we sat on my couch facing each other and held me. He didn’t just hug me. Instead, he didn’t let me go for quite some time. I am a hugger and even I wanted to pull away a bit. I know it was my discomfort in being that vulnerable. It isn’t just that I am worried about other people dealing with my emotions. It turns out I am also uncomfortable with dealing with my emotions.
Last week I wrote about the 36 questions to help you fall in love. Last night, my friend and I finished the questions. What did it accomplish? I can obviously only speak for myself, but I feel it primed us to have a really open and honest conversation about our friendship/relationship. I have always just said we were fun friends. I didn’t need to label it. But I am guilty of filling in the blanks in my head when it comes to all my relationships. I took this opportunity to ask questions, to share my feelings, and to really understand him. When he left, I felt full. I felt understood. I felt heard. I felt vulnerable. I felt validated. The blanks were filled in. They weren’t filled in with my version but with our version. He is now one of “those people.” Those people who really know me. I presented him with all of it unfiltered. And like my other “those people” (my very close friends who I over share my feelings with) he accepted me.
10-Year Take:
“Overshare”… ugh, I chose a judgment-based word at the very end. Yuck.
I read this, and I can see, clear as day, that this muscle I’ve built to be okay with my emotions has really strengthened. I look back, and I see myself apologizing for my emotions. Then, I went through a phase of not apologizing. Now, I’m seeing my emotions as a superpower. That’s quite the arc!
Also, rereading the story of the day my mom passed away… I really did NOT think she would die any time soon. It was like this, but it was far off time; definitely not that day. It was like I was living in a dream. Looking back, she was weak. She’d been doing weekly chemo right to the end. Yet that day, when she sang Happy Birthday in the midst of the gathering in our home, her voice was clear as day. As I sit here in tears, remembering the delusional thought that she wouldn’t die, I know there was a big piece of me that was being protected by that denial.
I was Michelle 1.0 back then. I didn’t know how to have difficult conversations. That conversation with the friend mentioned above was one of my first more difficult ones. Why was it difficult? Because I had to share my feelings, and that was scary. Looking back, I wish I could have had some difficult aka vulnerable conversations with my mom. We didn’t have a big goodbye talk. We skirted it. Danced around it. Even in our talk about her funeral, we were sitting in the middle of a busy breakfast restaurant. How bizarre to look back at.
