I hate feeling vulnerable, like I feel right now.  I just hit send on an e-mail to a colleague regarding a work issue.  I cannot talk to this person as I have never met her nor do I know where she lives. It is a long-distance working relationship within which time and space are dimensions that work against, rather than bring alongside. The issue of which I write pertains to a misunderstanding, and I have tried my best to explain my side of things through the written word.

The written word.  It lacks the nuances that are afforded with body language.  A smile can soften the blow when words become serious.  A touch, inserted in the heat of the moment can turn an argument into a discussion.  Eye contact means everything.  Body language is a close second.

So it is with great trepidation that I send off that letter.  Vulnerability is not a covering I wear well.

I have been in this place before; the written word has failed me too many times to count.  So, it is to the readers who are privy to this post that I will reveal some things about myself.

I am very insecure.  I hate being misunderstood.  When I think I have been misunderstood, I will move heaven and earth to explain myself. I also want to understand everything.  Everything.  I hate not knowing.  I want to know what, who, how long, how much, how often and where.  And I want to know why.

Because I question and analyze and turn things around, I am easily hurt myself.  I read into things.  I cannot accept simple answers.  I always think things are far more complicated than they really are.  I am often suspicious.  And very, very sceptical.

I use humour to mask pain.  If I write about it in jest, you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a pile of pain behind that story.  My life is not nearly as funny as I portray it to be, but the humor lifts me to a place where I can accept that life is not perfect.  In the imperfections, we find grace and acceptance.  We find courage to carry on.

I am resilient.  I have a story within a story within a story.  Some layers tell of very painful things.  Other layers tell stories that are light-hearted in spite of the pain.  Some stories are unbelievable, but all are true.  I do not write fiction.  I tried.  I could not find anything of worth to right down.  The only stories I can tell are those that are real.  They are my stories, for better or for worse.

I am tenacious.  I do not tire easily when I am working towards a goal.  Most goals are bigger than myself, and possibly unrealistic.  I have dogged determination that I can do that which my minds sets out to do.  I will make myself finish things even if it kills me.

I believe in truth bigger than myself.  I am not the be all and end all of my life.  There is more for which I live than myself.  I am self-sacrificial to a fault.  I live my life for others, but in doing so I hope to gain it all back.  My purpose.  A deeper reason to live other than that which is self-serving.  God, my family, my friends, myself.  In that order, most of the time.

I’m only human.

When all is said and done, I am simply a girl, not a mother or a wife or a daughter or a friend, teacher or colleague.  At the end of the day, I’m just a girl.  That girl wears her emotions inside out most of the time, but she is honest and real.  I will be that girl until I breathe my dying breath and let her go.  She is the essence of who I really am inside.

That is the best I can really hope for in this life.  This imperfect here and now.

To be human, damaged yet perfect, just the way I am.