until it passes

Is it strong or selfish to lay everything out on the line? Last night, I thought it was frighteningly brave, but today I’m having doubts.

I used to go to bed angry as a habit. I slept unsettled feelings away; I was really really good at this. Sometimes I would sleep entire days away. I have had people ask me, “How can you sleep through that??” referring to the way my alarm will beep for two hours next to my ear. Or I’ve had friends ask, “How can you fall asleep anywhere??” because whether on a smelly Greyhound bus with my head jostling against a window or in a sardine-packed car in the dead of winter because all the hotels were full, I could still snooze in a heartbeat. Well, because once you’ve trained yourself to sleep through paralyzing rage, you can sleep through anything. Now I’ve flip-flopped. Feelings of anxiety or frustration run through my veins, poisoning sleepiness. So I talk for hours until I feel better, siphoning out the pollution before it kills me, or I take pills to calm the waves. When what is making me anxious or frustrated involves strong confusing feelings about someone else and that is the person I'm venting to, was it a courageous or cowardly feat to lay my fears and madness out there? ‘I’m trying to fucking stop these filters when we speak. We have them for so many other people. I don’t want them with you,’ I had thought at the time, mentally shaking my fist, sobbing. But today, I simply want to disappear.

Is the mind the last taboo? A good friend of mine brought this up before, and it’s interesting and disturbing. We (in general and hypothetical terms) are more comfortable dropping our pants than our guards. The most intimate physical acts often occur before the most intimate parts of ourselves are shared with that other person. As he posed it to me, “Did our grandparents know each other before they ‘knew’ each other?” I’ve had many boyfriends, but very few have known me well. Most knew really nothing at all, and usually, that suited me just fine. After all, you can't give your heart away to just anybody.

But if you don't know a person, how can you give your heart away at all?