Vulnerability.

I recently read a blog by Hannah Brencher. This blog, it wasn't like anything else I have ever read. It broke me. It literally broke me into pieces.

I wrote her about my experience, telling about what it did to me. I've read my email to a few close friends and all of them have encouraged me to share this, to share this with you.

This email is a very vulnerable email. It's real and it came from a very deep, dark, real part of me. If certain words offend you, don't read it. I won't apologize for anything I've had to say in it but I will quote something Maya Angelou said. She said, "I have to know that the brute, the bigot and the batterer are children of God and I'm supposed to treat them accordingly. It's hard, and I blow it all the time."

People hurt us and it's important to find a way to love them, forgive them, and let them go. But, it's also important to express the pain that was caused.

So here's my pain. I'm wearing it right on my sleeve, because that's who I am.

"I just picked myself off the floor.

Literally.

I've been working part time with this organization that offers free career counseling at the local community library. I was sitting in the room I normally sit in, reading through some of your old blogs (since no one had contacted me to see me). I sit and read or look through facebook, just incase anyone see's the ad and decides to drop in without contacting me first.

I come across your blog, "Hi, My name is Guard Your Heart. Wanna Date?"

I begin to read your words. Your vulnerability. Your ability to lay out what you have done before the world. Your ability to lay the hurt and to articulate the hurt so beautifully.

As I read, I begin to feel my chest tighten. I begin to become aware of every smell, every person, and millisecond of that very moment.

No one's watching me. No one is looking for me, but I look around as if someone is staring at me. As if two, four, six pairs of eyes are on me in this very moment.

I get to the last part, where you write, 'Guarding your heart, it sounds like languages gone extinct from unuse until God speaks. Until Hesays something to blow your little face off:
I want you to know, need  you to know, that your heart is big & beautiful thing–far more precious than you will ever understand. Don’t even try to fathom the weight of it. Just know this– I cannot stand to see it thrown, tousled, trapped in the hands of a Someone who was never made to hold it.

Heed the whisper that I am planting in your spirit: Every. Bit. Of. You. Is. Precious. Cargo. Your heart, your dreams, your hurts, your pains– they never belonged buried in the hands of a Someone who doesn’t fully understand you. They never belonged buried in the hands of a Someone who doesn’t fully understand what it took to make you.'

Well dear, that's exactly what happened in that moment, my little face got blown off. My not so little heart exploded out of my chest and oxygen came flooding into the wounds. Every. Single. Wound. In. My. Chest.

I've written you before, telling you, in passing that I had recently gotten out of a unhealthy relationship.

But if I were to dissect the word "unhealthy", if I were to define it, it would say: I cut off a relationship with a guy who had been emotionally manipulating me for 8 years. I finally broke the tie. But it wasn't until after I broke the tie, finally said I was done that I realized he had been manipulating my emotions. That he had been using me as a ego boost for years, even when he was dating other girls. EVEN WHEN HE HAD OTHERS GIRLFRIENDS HE WAS TEXTING ME TELLING ME HOW HE WISHED THINGS WOULD HAVE WORKED FOR US. TELLING ME HOW HE REALLY WANTED THE RELATIONSHIP AND THAT I WAS THE ONE WHO PREVENTED IT FROM HAPPENING. FUCKING TELLING ME THAT HE STILL SAW A FUTURE ONCE HE GOT HIMSELF TOGETHER.

The worst part is that through all this I became close to his family. They became like my family. They loved me and cared for me.

This isn't the first time I've tried cutting him out. I've done it before. But what I never did before, I never cut off communication with his family. Until now. This time, I broke their hearts. I hurt them, because I couldn't keep hurting myself in this situation.

I couldn't live any longer thinking that I was the problem, thinking I wasn't good enough, fun enough, beautiful enough. I. Just. Couldn't. Do. It. Anymore.

After I read that last paragraph, I felt the bleeding, the bleeding of my heart coming up to the surface. I couldn't bleed all over that library table. I couldn't sit there and bleed in front of people I've never met, never known, will possibly never know.

I grabbed my stuff and I walked out to my car. Got in. Drove as fast as I could home (passing his neighborhood).

I got home. Came into my room. Turned off all the lights. Covered my window to make the room darker. Got into my bed and broke and bled. I then fell into the floor, crying out to God. Begging him. Begging him that it wasn't true. Begging him to tell me that I hadn't been manipulated by someone for years. Pleading for him to come down and tell me that I hadn't shown my heart, shared my secrets with a man who will do nothing but carry them, carry them for the rest of his life.

My heart kept bleeding. Bleeding in grievance for 8 years. 8 years of believing someone just needed time, space, and patience. That in time, these things would help him to see me, to love me, to care for me.

The thing is. The sad thing is that he knew me all along. He knew me from the moment he met me and he learned really quickly what bate it took to keep me. He knew my weaknesses and used them to fill his own bones. To fill his own ego.

I'm off the floor. I know I deserve better than that. I deserve so much more than that and I'm willing to do whatever it takes. To make whatever sacrifices I need to make to never feel that way again. To instead, believe the words of my Father, my God, who tells me I'm beautiful. He looks at me the way an artist looks at his painting and smiles. Smiles with pure love and satisfaction that He did good. He did good in what he made.

Thank you for your ear. Thank you for your heart.

You will most likely receive a million thank you's from me as long as you keep writing :-)

Emily Walters"