underestimating me is your mistake and my advantage

I found it in my coffee; knew I left it somewhere.

Do we ever stop crawling?

There are patterns everywhere.

This postcard that I found on my friend Vince's wall illustrates a truth that I have been grappling with for some time.

I have been thinking a lot about love, family, and friendship over the last few months. They are three concepts that I come across daily, deal with constantly, and influence every facet of my life. They make up the foundation of my being and the cornerstone by which I find the strength to do all other things.

Love, Family, & Friendship are the first things I learned to forget. I forgot they were there, I forgot what they looked like, I forgot how they smelled and felt and tasted and sounded. I have been surrounded by them all the days of my life and never even payed attention.
Do you ever notice how difficult it is to look someone straight in the eye? and not look away? not once?

Now try doing it while you’re having a conversation with them. During everything you say and everything they say, don’t look away. Look them straight in the eye and then LISTEN. Really, really listen to all the words that come streaming out of their mouth and stare them in the eye, and just be. When I did it, I was scared and I just wanted to look away and I couldn’t stop thinking about just forcing myself to look in their eyes and then I was trying so hard I wasn’t even listening to what they were saying and then my eyes kept darting away and I was so stressed for like 10 seconds. Then I tried again and again and again and again with different people in different places, doing different things – and I got used to it. I started to relax and I finally stopped thinking about it, and just started doing it – a couple seconds here, half a minute there. I can now do it for minutes at a time just looking someone right in the eye and having a conversation with them. The truly hard part is getting them to look you back in the eye. Once you get to that point you’ll start noticing how there eyes keep darting around, and seem to not know where they should look. Their gaze feels uncomfortable and they’re wondering why you’re looking at them like that. They may ask you, what’s wrong? or What’s that look for? But just tell them nothing and that you’re just listening, and they’ll smile and keep going on with whatever they’re saying, and just keep looking at them. See them until you can’t see anything else. Hear them until you can’t hear anything else. Be 100% present and focused on the person in front of you. Seeing everything about them that you’ve never seen before. Allow yourself to do it.

That’s what I’m trying to do. I’ve been practicing and it’s getting easier. It’s fun to do, like a game, and it’s great to see how each person reacts, how they’re attitude can change, and how the topic of the conversation can suddenly shift from the mundane to the not.
I’ve been consciously doing it for about a week. I’m scared, and it’s hard. At times, like this morning, I’m tempted to just go back to the old way and let myself fall back into my head, and close my eyes, but I know that I won’t. There is no going back. We cannot unlearn that which we already know.

I’m loving and that’s a good thing. I’m starting to understand what it means to love someone. It seems like I’ve never done this before, but I feel like I have. I think that I have before, but it was so long ago that I forgot. When I was a baby, a child, in elementary school. I know that I felt and that it hurt, and that I raged, and that I cried. I know that I got excited and wondered at the magic of Christmas. That I would stay up all night from the sheer excitement of the coming Christmas morning! That I would take trips and get on planes and feel nervous and excited and scared. That I would grab onto my mother’s leg because it was the only part of her that I could reach and bury my face into her skin, smell her, and feel safe. I know how I still do that to this day. I know that I feel safe in the embrace of another. That there is nothing I want more at night then another warm body to hold and be held, to smell and to hear. To be surrounded always by people who know me and see me and love me and feel me. By people who see all of themselves in me, and love what they see! I’m just a narcissist, utterly in love with myself. I am learning to love myself, and I am learning to love every part of me through loving every part of you. The more human I see in you, the more human I know in me. Sometimes I think we get disgusted by the idea of being “human”. Like it’s a bad thing, weak, finite, and dumb. But it isn’t, it isn’t an anything. It’s just human, who we are. It’s what we are.

Human Being.