closeness

I have a difficult time with relationships. Growing up close friends were lacking, I spent most of my time wandering from one group to another, desperate to fit in though aching to be different. I wanted to be beautiful yet mysterious, popular and chased after.

I never made it.

I got invited to a few of the "cool" parties only to make the most detrimental choices of my adolescence and secretly had the most fun hanging out with the "dorks," who accepted me for who I was even though I hardly knew myself at all. So these inconsistency created a void in me when it comes to letting people in, revealing the truth of who I am and what I feel and where I stand on things. I find it to be true in some form even now, even after God has been doing a powerful work in me for over 8 years.

There are friends here in this new place that I feel the Spirit speaking into my heart, friends that I am being called to let in, to be real and vulnerable with, to tell them the things I always hold back. But I'm AFRAID.

The three women in my life that I consider the closest of friends were all born of adversity. We struggled through things together, they told me the hard truths and I, in turn, denied my selfishness to speak truth into their lives. Why, then, do I find it so hard to try again? Why am I so afraid of rejection that I let loneliness take it's place instead of taking the risk? I'm tired of masking my shallowness with a smile, but where to begin is the true challenge. I guess you just dive in, knowing that the buoy of acceptance is just as close as the anchor of betrayal and that no matter the outcome, eventually you'll make your way back to the surface.