"When you get to know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell on their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That's why you can't fall in love with beauty or looks. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can love it with your eyes and your body, but not your heart. That's why when you really connect with a person, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant."
I used to wonder how the soul of a person would look if the outside were stripped away, and only the core of who they were was left standing there, simple and unaltered, unadorned.
This is the answer.
You only have to look at your closest friend-- the one who knows you inside and out, who can sing your secrets to sleep, who has their heart tucked somewhere in your hand--to realize that you don't see the shell at all. You couldn't describe their attractiveness based on their physical qualities alone, couldn't ever actually be sure what a stranger would observe, because you see so much deeper. Their soul shines through and obliterates any imperfections.
I love these discoveries.
Sometimes I look at these individual hearts tucked into my palm and marvel at who they are and what they've become. The truest thing I could ever say of a friend would be, "Your soul is beautiful."
And they are.
12 comments:
Oh goodness, this is everything exactly and I've always felt this way but never described it so completely or so well.
I hope this means good things are happening with you.
Thank you so much for this.
That's a gorgeous thought.
i love this!
It's a nice thought, and I would agree with it in general, but not in my case specifically. None of my friends will ever be that close. No one but me should have to carry my burdens.
I don't think human beings are created with the strength it would take to carry everything absolutely alone. Not without gradually warping, and hardening, becoming something solitary and secluded and inhuman inside their own heads. I could be wrong, but I think it would be impossible to live this way, void of connections with other humans, and be whole. Because we aren't whole by ourselves. We're not made that way.
And that's the funny thing, Kyle. Burdens become something else when other people shrug up under them next to you. Less something to struggle with and more of an experience to be shared. When you love someone, it's not hard at all.
Anyway.
Gorgeous thoughts, even in your comments! I especially love the part about burdens.
I'm not sure about the wholeness. It's a nice thought, though.
I could be wrong about the wholeness. But I don't think so. I've yet to meet a person, one who refuses to let anybody else in, to be vulnerable, to embrace the strength that comes in being able to ask for help when it is needed, who wasn't so much less than they could be. It always made me sad.
It's hard to see potential wasted because somebody thinks that strength lies in throwing up walls between themself and the world. That's all I meant.
Good points, but there is perhaps a sort of strength in not burdening the ones you love with problems that really only need to affect you? There is a strength in vulnerability, for sure, but maybe there is also a strength in not asking for more than someone else can give?
I don't know. I used to never tell anyone anything, and now I tell certain people everything, and most people most things, and sometimes I wish I still had the strength to keep the things that could hurt them to myself.
Oh, you're right, of course. (I think we're coming at the same thing from different sides. Fun. ;)) There's always a balance between what you share and what you keep close. Finding it is a royal pain, sometimes, and from what I've discovered about how you work, it seems like you would be super concerned about making that balance as good and healthy as it could be. Or maybe I'm reading myself into you. But you're figure it out, if you haven't already. I have faith. :)
Thanks for not agreeing with me. I was pleased. :D
You're totally right; we agree on the core, I think. :-)
Thanks for the compliment, and for not automatically agreeing with me, either. :-D
Have a lovely weekend!
If I may, it seems possible that what is being discussed is not just the idea of whether we should share our problems, but a questioning of the how. I think this how tugs on the idea of individuality in the cohesive "us-ness" that exists in close relationships.
An illustration to bolster the perspective I'm attempting to convey: if I run to you the moment I'm beset by a problem, it seems that the problem was never really mine. I'm simply a transfer device, a temporary receptacle during delivery to you--you, who becomes the holder, processor, keeper of my problems.
Yet on the opposite extreme, if I don't share my burdens and problems and quandaries, they can augment--perhaps even become--the walls that separate me from other, from health, from the intimacy and wholeness we were meant to find through friendship, through intimate connection, through community.
Thanks for the discussion... the interwoven threads of these ideas--such great ideas--is oh. so. neat.
Ooh, I like that. A synthesis. Well done.
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