burn in: exposing unmasked areas

Lately I’ve been thinking intently about the concept of safe places. About a remark I’d made in early September and at least one of the requisite responses. And there’s something else, too. Equally elusive and immutable. That’s vaguely connected to the realization that there just might not be anything wrong with this desire to need people. To want to know and be known.

I’m forced, in this context, to redefine my previously held definition of safe place. It isn’t a dimly light hallway waiting to be stalked. Nor friends’ much abused couches. It is not an unfeeling embrace. I’ve had to conclude that perhaps the physical manifestations that have arisen from my own inability to use words to express emotion are not the only possible response. And that these emerging contact zones, both new and old, are just different versions. In most cases, these conversations and engagements are most likely safer, stronger, healthier, and more honest in comparison.

It feels so much easier to lie in a pile of undefined lines than to make the invisible visible. To talk as much as listen. To realize that investment isn’t genuine if it only comes from one direction. I’ve got good friends. I’ll get about.