Vulnerability

The word vulnerability has been on my mind the entire weekend. And that thoughts on the concept of vulnerability had decided to come my way, I figured I’d try and explore them a bit more than shut them off, as I would normally do. It’s a pretty strong word; and that’s where this post essentially stems from. Before I begin, I would like to differentiate between feeling vulnerable and showing vulnerability. I’m here to talk about the latter; about expressing or exhibiting the feeling of vulnerability.

Why are we so scared to show the feeling of vulnerability or imperfection; the feeling that we are liable to be attacked in all and every possible way? I don’t generically mean attack in the physical sense of the word and definitely not in this context. So what makes us fearful of showing the world that we’re, at times, scared and apprehensive? Are society’s million stereotypes and standards the foundations on which we build these insecurities of being judged as weak and incapable? Because the last time I checked, fear was a legit emotion/state of being; something that was quite normal and something that has a massive base of study and research to fall back on.

I get the concept of defenses because, like you, I ride on plenty of them too. But I cannot understand how we became so two-faced, literally. I’m at that stage where I question not marriage or committed relationships but the million things that go behind them, since I used them as examples. No one ever sees a woman sad in her marriage even though her eyes betray every word she uses to claim otherwise. No one ever hears of nasty fights and arguments. No one ever hears a spouse being asked to get the hell out of the house. No one ever hears of loneliness, a pathetic sex life or even extra marital affairs, for that matter. Of course it’s one to wash your dirty laundry in public and it’s another to accept one’s reality and move from there. It’s either that or the world lives in a happy but monotonously dirty world of denial with double standards because wherever you look, there’s nothing but perfection and pretty little smiles. And twinkling, glassy eyes.

It confuses me. Maybe the world around me is OK with that or has better ways of dealing with masking vulnerability and imperfections or maybe I’m just too unequipped to handle life but doesn’t living a pretentious life bother anyone? Also, isn’t a perfect life and a perfect marriage and a perfect boyfriend/girlfriend and a perfect child and a perfect relationship so imperfect? It confuses me not because I question the truth about reality and what it really is but because it leads me down a rosy path that in actuality doesn’t exist. No family is perfect, no sibling is flawless, no parent keeps their child(ren) happy 24/7 for the rest of their lives, no wife wakes up looking like a doll, no husband lays low under what seems to be a dominant wife. There are no perfect A’s or spotless track records. We do not live in Utopia.

There are ways and there are dynamics; there are people and there are relationships. There are black days and there are regular days; there are normal days and there are very trying normal days. There is madness and there is chaos. There is silence because there has been noise. There is peace because there has been conflict. There are smiles and there are tears and there is anger and there is shame and there is guilt and there is so much more. Call it a weird philosophical foundation I have, but I believe in the yin and yang concept. And if I were to digress right now, I believe there’s a reason and purpose even when you think there is none.

I let these thoughts stay with me and explored them because I need them as constant reminders; reminders to tell me that the high and low of every pendulum is normal; that there is no perfection except in imperfection. I need to remind myself that it’s normal to feel vulnerable, that showing vulnerability does not imply being weak, that weakness is just the other side of strength. What I am trying to ultimately say is that it is normal and that perhaps if these so called perfect people were a little less insecure, they’d probably set better examples for those who actually turn to them or look up to them.

When I read about the public scuffle between Nigella Lawson and her husband that happened last night, I admired the lady wayyyy more than I already do. She is a role model and has been. And I admired her more not because she got assaulted by her husband in public and kissed his cheek thereafter, but because what I saw there were some very real emotions. There was no sensationalism of any kind. Here was a celebrity who’d had a scuffle with her husband and she did what she had to do. And she was normal about it. I, in no way, mean I’m OK with the incident that took place. All I mean to say is that I admire her because given all that her celebrity status is riding on and the millions of Euros and Pounds she’s worth, she was just a normal woman yesterday who didn’t hide from the world what the truth about her marriage really was. And I think that takes immense courage to do.

It’s never easy to show weakness. It’s never easy to tell the world that you are the occasional doormat for your spouse/parents or kids. It’s never easy to tell the world that you messed up. It’s never easy to show the world your bruises. And what’s even harder is to accept that you could be all this and more to your own self. I think it takes immense courage to show fear and weakness. I think being level about that to one’s own self and then to those who matter, even if not the world, is a person’s greatest strength and that vulnerability has more strength in it than we even realize.