“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
–Margery Williams/The Velveteen Rabbit
This is a calling card
Maybe it will be a farewell note
The poison fountain pen now requires the antidote
–Elvis Costello/My Little Blue Window
I no longer see these things as risk. I see them as acts of trust. I think the real risk is the choice to disconnect. To be afraid of one another.
–Amanda Palmer/The Art of Asking
Once, a long time ago, I knew this boy.
He was smart, funny, kind, athletic and all things good to me.
I loved him.
He was real, but sometimes he tended to veer away into a sort of alter ego.
A mask of a personality.
A bit like a politician.
Forcing himself to laugh and smile.
But with me, on our own, he was real.
He worked hard to be successful.
At everything.
The more he worked at it, the less real he seemed to become.
Most people get more real with time, at least the ones I consider friends. It’s been the other way around with him. Or so it seems to me.
Eventually I could only find the tiniest spark of a real person inside of him.
He said women always left him. Even some of his own family. He felt like there was no one in the world who would stand up for him. No one who he could trust, no one who had his back.
I think he has some really good reasons for wanting to be impervious. I think he has a lot of good reasons not to trust people. Don’t we all, though?
I don’t think he has ever really understood that in order for people to trust you, you have to trust them. I don’t think he knows that if you can’t trust some people, it doesn’t mean that all people suck.
I am not sure he really understands that in order for people to love you, you have to show them who you really are. You have to be real. He knows it on an intellectual level, I just don’t think he really understands it on an emotional one.
He says the right things about being genuine. About being kind.
But when it comes to actions, he can be callous. He makes excuses for casual cruelty. It is always someone else’s fault when he is doesn’t show up for something, or is mean-spirited. He quick to assume he is being attacked when it comes to hearing what effect his actions have on other people. Everything is a reason to withdraw.
I am not sure if that is because he is un empathetic in the extreme, or if he simply believes so strongly that people are responsible for their own feelings that he thinks it doesn’t matter what he does.
He is not a bad person, he says, and I believe him.
He is becoming something worse.
He is becoming a shell.
He tries to compensate.
He reaches for shiny things and shiny people.
He drinks too much.
He laughs and smiles a lot, but the laughter and smiles never reach his eyes.
He keeps himself very busy.
He makes sure he is always entertained and entertaining.
He doesn’t think about what he is doing to himself or to other people.
He seems to want someone easy. Someone pretty. Someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking. Someone who will laugh at his jokes and not ask hard questions about the things he does. Maybe be impressed with financial big gestures. Someone who won’t pester him to share. Someone who is willing to settle for the shell or not even notice that maybe that’s all there is left.
He pushes away the few people who still love him. The real ones. The ones who really care about him.
Me, finally.
And it took a lot for it to happen. I will love the person he is forever, but I can’t be around someone who not only isn’t real but thinks he already is.
If he were ever to read this, he might think I am completely wrong.
He might feel like I am attacking him.
He might not understand or believe how much I hope that he finds happiness.
But isn’t really about that boy.
It’s really about me.
It’s about how I feel.
How his actions have effected me.
It’s about what I want.
I am not shiny.
I am not easy.
I am not willing to let things slide.
I want to share thoughts, ideas, emotions, shenanigans, laughter and tears.
I want everything.
And I want someone who is real, even if most of his hair has been loved off, his joints have gotten loose and he is very shabby. After all, I’ve got scars of my own from becoming real. We all do. We just have to keep trying to stay real as much as we can, even when it hurts.
Being impervious?
The only reward is that it keeps out some of the pain.
We have to learn that it keeps out most of the good stuff, too.
It keeps out everything that is real, or that helps us be real.
Being real isn’t optional, it’s mandatory. For me. For the people I have in my life.
At this point in my life, if I were to select my own personal toast, it would go something like this:
Here’s to the chinks in our armor.
The only things that keep us real.
Cheers!