INTIMACY

Main Entry: in·ti·ma·cy


Pronunciation: \ˈin-tə-mə-sē\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural in·ti·ma·cies

Date: 1641

1 : the state of being intimate : familiarity

2 : something of a personal or private nature

I woke up this morning thinking of intimacy and what it means to me......how it's manifested in my life....or perhaps the lack of intimacy I really have.
 
I can look back and see the warped seeds of intimacy that I had as models for behavior growing up.  I always disregarded those examples.  What I saw within my parents' relationships were excuses not to do their own personal work, as well as the fact I could see, they weren't really honest with themself or their parnters.
 
So I set out to learn to be true to myself.....to heed my own inner creed......to cultivate intimacy with myself.  I grew to become very private.......I turned so inward that I practically re-decorated my interior life.  I grew comfortable there......I thought I had finally accomplished something great and grand and safe. 
 
Erecting walls of such a grand scale took time and effort and lots and lots of fear.  Underneath my determination to do it my way was this need to not be hurt again.....not choose the wrong man.......not once again fuck everything up so completely. 
 
So what happens when I want to become intimate with someone else?  To 'be familiar with'?  Barriers and more fear!!!!!!!!!!!  A journey that could be filled with wonderment and intimacy is also fraught with an unfamiliarity. 
 
In a lifetime where I am lucky enough to have time to see situations and myself from yet another perspective I now see I am rusty and unknowing of intimacy between me and another person.  This question comes up over and over again....."Why would you even want me?"  " Don't you know I come from a place so fractured"?   So consumed with being honest and self disclosing I totally missed a huge piece of the picture.  I am more than my past, where I came from, who I was exposed to, what mistakes I made. 
 
Done, finished, dealt with...........Today, right at this moment even though everything occured it matters little to help me with intimacy.  For what I see now is that intimacy can and should be fresh and new and unexplored.  I'm not needing or wanting to re-invent myself but I do have an opportunity to put forth the best parts of me and what I've been learning into practice. 
 
I have become so accustomed to looking out for me that I forget that someone else might want to help.  I became so good at standing up for me that I neglected to know and accept that someone would have my back.  I chose to stand in a place of such hard-fast resiliance that I forgot how to be vulnerable........not just to myself but to the magnificence of someone else and the gifts of the World.
 
Where I was once open and fluid I have become rigid and ambivilent.  This is not what I want or need to continue to be.  So now I feel like the shoe is on the other foot.  The pendulum has moved back the other way.......I am going outside myself to re-integrate with the World and all it offers.  I once moved through the World armed only with the belief that Love is the right way and to look for it in all people and situations.  I forgot to do that for myself for the greatest experience we can truly have is to share ourself, our most intimate self with another human being. 
 
Instead of making the most out of a minimum person, place, or thing, I will have the  greatest response from a person that is fully capable of responding on all levels to me and to himself as well as the World.  I see now that the intimacy I am willing to have is a good thing, but the intimacy I am willing to have with another is how I can continue to learn and grow and develop.
 
It is important to stand at a place and look back and see everything played out.  It is far better to stand and look forward and see the beauty of what has not yet played out.