Vulnerable Intimacies

It's 9:30 but feels like 10:30 and my brain is fried. Ah well. I woke up this morning thinking about friendships and marriage and how intimacies get more difficult as one gets older and relationships become more complicated over time.

I'm not sure friend-making was ever easy for me, but I do recall feeling less trepidation when I was younger and being able to form close bonds much more easily and quickly. Mind you, I was an artist and tended to hang out with artists... so we were a bunch of touchy-feely-minded folks.

But it has gotten trickier. Maybe even harder upon having a child. We don't really prioritize our own time for socializing. And so I think we've become even more isolated - though that likely connects to a series of decisions we made in the last few years.

And I'm not really complaining about this... just sort of thinking about it and noticing it and wondering after it. It feels akin to so many of the other simple and innocent pleasures of childhood that seem to slip away with age and increased responsibilities and connections to the world.

Anyway... I sometimes miss the friends who slipped away, and I often wonder what the next 10 years will hold in the way of closeness to others. Intimacy is such a tricky thing because it so often gets tangled in with sex... but being able to be vulnerable with others is, I believe, a very integral part of living and existing fully and authentically. (And I am speaking of emotional vulnerability here, not physical.)

Allowing such frailty is sometimes necessary for deeper understanding and growth, and so it's good and perhaps quite important to have people around whom you can relax and be imperfect... not just your spouse, or partner, or family... but strangers who become vital to you as they move into the realm of friend because they get to see a side of you that is unique, unfiltered, and separate from the definitions of your other intimate connections.