I had a realization about the other side of connection that I don’t often consider.  Genuine connection has become so important to me that I am more cautious now about how much I let people see.  I am still very much open, but I have stopped the habit of oversharing to create a bond.  But with that bond, I had other habits that contradicted the connection I sought.  I always felt the need to have connection, I wanted to be heard and understood, yet at the same time, I’d have issues with people getting too close to me.  I never liked feeling like someone knew more about me than I wanted them to.  I never liked it when people assumed they knew what I would do especially when they only ever saw part of me.  I didn’t like that people took my desire for connection and turned it into some sort of power play over me.  People can only ever see what we share, and that will only ever be part of the big picture.  Just because we see people in a different light and think we understand them, doesn’t mean we understand the full breadth of them.  I never wanted people to assume they knew all of me.  I’m still allowed to be human and change my mind and because you knew me in one light doesn’t mean you know me here.   

I thought about celebrity and how people have this weird propriety over people they don’t even know just because they did something that resonated for a moment.  That’s a lot of pressure—in cases (like with actors) those are roles they are playing, that isn’t the real person.  Frigga’s speech to Thor in Endgame is incredibly written—it’s beautifully acted but I know Rene Russo isn’t Frigga.  Then there are the artists/poets/musicians who truly do lay their souls to bare.  There is a level of discomfort of being recognized after sharing something that resonates with so many people–connection is a vulnerable thing.  There are pieces of us that we lay bare for the world, just parts of us we show the world that were important to us, when we were just being who we are.  Like the nerdy kids, the kids who love reading, who love using words, who simply love music or some other piece and there’s something that just clicks with someone else—a phrase that unlocks and connects to the soul.  They have no idea who that person really is, but that piece connected.  It doesn’t mean we are allowed entry to every facet of that person’s life.  Like, no matter what we’re all human. 

We don’t become someone different when we share something that the world connects to. If we were lost before sharing ourselves, we may still be working through other pieces of who we are and it can be overwhelming to have people behave like they know all of who we are in that moment.  I WAS one of those people who thought I knew everything about someone when they shared a piece of themselves.  Truth be told, I am sensitive and I do tend to read people accurately but I never considered whether or not they wanted me in that capacity.  Keep in mind like I said earlier, that even I hated when people acted like they knew too much about me.  Connection is a tricky thing, how we are looking for that connection but still feel lost somehow. How we want people close but not too close, how we let them in and then push them away. The human soul needs to be seen by someone else, we need to feel whole not because of someone but in the presence of someone else.  We can only be whole with who we are because we are the only ones who know the full story of who we are.  Connection happens naturally, just let it be what it is.