Being vulnerable sucks.

As a general rule in life, I prefer metaphors and allegories and confusing language because it’s easier to keep people out that way.  It’s like sharing, without really sharing.  My preferred manner of self-preservation if you will, which, currently has been getting messed with.  You see, I have these things called friends, and they love me.  And in this journey we’re on together called Life, we’ve been realizing a couple of things and are slowly but steadily working on them.

One topic in particular that I hate talking about is my singleness.  Now, I’m not ashamed of it.  Pinky promise.  Scout’s honor.  Plus every other phrase out there that signifies I am telling the truth…but talking about my singleness?…and to you all?  That’s a little bit too vulnerable for me.  An absolute absurdity, I’d say.  I much rather prefer obscurity.  And yet, such is the subject of this post as I work on prying open this introverted heart of mine, as I work on being vulnerable with friends, and as I work on being honest with myself.

(Quick!  Better finish reading before I come to my senses and delete this post.)

That being the case, I embrace my girly-ness for the next five hundred words and bare it all  to give you my top five characteristics I find attractive in a guy.

#1. He has to be unread.  An imagination is a dangerous thing.  It is much more preferable to live guarded and predictable.  Good writing, however, tantalizes the mind and takes it to places far away.  A boy who gets carried away with fanciful stories and intellectual dialogue begins to think for himself; furthermore, he begins to write for himself.  He ascribes to his own story, purpose, and recognizes it in every twist and turn.  Along the way, he develops a discipline for contemplation and begins to build character.  Eventually, this boy who reads becomes the boy who dreams.  Far past that which is practical, of course.  How naive.

#2.  He has to be untraveled.  It is so much easier to be ignorant when you have lived your whole life within the same five blocks from which you were born, not to mention, amongst the same fifty-or-so people.  After all, a boy who has never ventured into the unknown and the uncomfortable will surely have everything together.  His heart will be thoroughly intact because it will never have broken over the poverty and slavery and injustice in neighborhoods far and wide.  His heart will be in mint condition because it will never have felt the ache of missing or being missed by loved ones.  And of course, it will be perfectly syncopated, never having skipped a beat over the discovery of a new happy place or the splendor of a natural wonder or the the kindness of a stranger.

#3.  He has to be uncompromising.  I’m fairly certain it was Jesus who said, * “They’ll know you are my disciples by your firm stance on divisive social issues.”  Yeah.  Trust me.  It’s somewhere in the New Testament.  And while I’m there, I might as well throw in “judgmental” as well as “legalistic.”  Now that’s trifecta right there.  That’s hot.  For a boy unwilling to listen to other people, to hear out their opinions and see matters from a different point of view, that is my kind of a guy.  For together, we will communicate sparingly and be opaque with one another.  We will disregard differences, becoming stronger and more understanding with each issue denied and deferred.  That goes without saying, we will live happily ever after.  Duh.

#4.  He has to be complacent.  Let’s talk personal growth.  I’ve always found a boy who has really low standards to be especially attractive.  He knows not to expect anything out of life and doesn’t expect to become anyone in life.  Best of all, he knows not to expect anything of me.  Growth is a difficult reality and doesn’t always feel too good.  I’d rather him not mess with that and then we can just remain forever young.  And I wanna be forever young, so we can live life like a video where the sun is always out and we never get old and the champagne is always cold and the music is always good.  Like I said, forever immature.

#5.  He has to be perfect.  MR. Perfect, that is.  At least, that’s what Disney taught me, and that’s who I am holding out for.  I can’t be wasting my time with flawed prospects who continue to mess up and are in constant need of forgiveness.  I mean, isn’t there an easier way to recognize the inherent yearning and necessity of an all-loving Savior?  You know, another way to learn of this grace thing and grow in it and give it to others without the nitty-gritty having to work through the hard stuff?  I am pretty sure there is.  I think.  And by that, what I really mean is that I know.  Because I’m actually perfect too.  I also never lie.

#Bonus.  He has to know who he is and what he wants.  So when I get freaked out at the realization that I am attracted to him and instinctively close up, run away, and throw my smoke screens up and my red herrings out, he will already know that it is me he wants.  He will esteem me as worth pursuing.  And he will pursue.

Now I could go on with the list, but as it is, I’ve said too much.  I am already 885 words too vulnerable.  So, that will be it for now.  That will be all for tonight.  Thanks for reading.  I think.  I may actually feel quite differently in the morning, embarrassed and  hungover from this literary stupor, not to mention, terribly overexposed to the world.  Still, here’s’ to being vulnerable.

And here’s to you, Boy.  I look forward to meeting you sooner or later.

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*  Andrew Marin [Love Is an Orientation, 13]  For the record, Marin was being sarcastic in the text.  He doesn’t actually believe that but was just making a point.  For the other record, the answer is love.  “By this, all men will know you are my disciples if you have LOVE for one another.”  -John 13:35

It wasn’t too long ago and yet I feel like there have been a couple of lifetimes shoved in between then and now.  Still, I remember being in high school, waking up with the sun and sitting on the back patio with my gigantic cup of coffee and journal and pen that I most often times wouldn’t even pick up.  I’d just sit there and stare into our somewhat-triangle-shaped backyard, adorned with red ginger plants and a malnourished willow tree.  Sitting here on my couch now, six, seven, eight years later and over 4,000 miles away from that wooden picnic table, I can still recall and almost feel the shifting chill of night to the warm tropical air.  It was almost like the warming of one’s heart when they hear of someone doing a thoughtful or heroic deed, or like the warming of my heart when I hear “Proud to be an American.”  It was almost like that but a heartwarming experience for the soul.

Fast forward to my junior year of college and my wooden picnic table is now my rooftop in México and my Kirkland brand coffee is now Nescafe Clasico Instant Coffee.  And with tacky Christmas mug in hand, I can remember sitting out there for every sunrise, watching the sky turn from midnight blue to purple to pink to orange to light like watercolors seamlessly swept over canvas.  A masterful oeuvre of one color scheme and yet each sunrise unique and positively breathtaking with every colorful transition.  I would sit out there and with the birds on the nearby telephone lines, we would watch from our front row seats the sensation that is the start of another day.

Throw a couple of monumental life events into the mix, and I find myself in the city that, according to the maxim, never sleeps.  In actuality, though, I know when it sleeps.  The delivery and coffee-and-bagel cart and graveyard shift MTA guys know too, and that is during my commute.  Now, it may seem early for most, but I happen to love the city in the wee hours of the morning.  It is so calm and peaceful and, yes, I’m still talking about New York.  Everyone is so much friendlier.  Perhaps it’s because they’re not fully awake or the stress of the day hasn’t gotten to them yet or because everyone is able to get a seat on the subway.  Or maybe it’s because we’re all secretly a part of an exclusive early bird club that gets to witness the city without its makeup on, not to mention jaywalk when and where we please.  Or maybe it’s just me.  Either way, I love the city in the mornings, and I don’t want to forget this feeling.

Because as the sun sets on this chapter of life and the “What are you going to do in the fall?” questions begin to turn up in bulk, I don’t have a lot of answers.  When do I ever?  After all, trying to determine what my next year will look like is like trying to predict the weather for the third week of August.  No clue.  Nevertheless, I know that I want sunrises to be in there.  So really, all these pretty recollections are actually reminders to me, to my future self, that morning times are imperative for my life. They are glorious and sacred and early, but they are necessary.  And I love them.

Malia, you love them.  More than your fluffy purple comforter.  More than your snooze button.  More than your lazy self.  You love waking up early.  The end.  And.  Or.  The beginning of another beautiful year of morning time mysteries and marvels.

There is not a cloud in the sky to be seen, not a trade wind in the air to be felt.  I stand on the sweltering hot sand with the sun beating down on my midnight black hair and the bottoms of my feet burning up.  It is hot today.  It is unbelievably and unbearably hot.  Still, here I remain on shore waiting for direction, waiting for a command, waiting for someone else to select the next move for me.

Waiting like a kid playing Simon Says and yet all I hear is a barely audible, “You’re free.”

“Free?” my mind begins to ponder.  “Oh, no, no, no.  This is when someone tells me what to do and where to go and what my enumerated list is for the next five years.  This is a really big ocean of options.  How am I supposed to know which path to take?”  Still, in spite of my doubts, “Free,” I whisper as my toes reach forward to high-five the tip of the incoming wave.  The water feels shocking and refreshing but looks intimidating.  The sand is so hot at this point, though; I have no choice.  “FREE,” I declare as I walk ankle-deep into the ocean and indulge in the relief of its invigorating temperature.

I walk farther out until I am waist-deep.  A tingly sensation begins to spread over and up my abdomen.  I freeze up, almost wishing for the misery of the burning hot shore.  I am tempted to look back, but I know that’s not where I am going.  Because of that, I continue to walk forward.  My flat feet have already become tiptoes and my tiptoes are now being forced to prepare for take off.  Chest.  Chin.  Mouth.  Everything is slowly going under; and in a split second of rash decision-making, I release my panic and relax my body, forfeiting it completely to the ocean’s grasp until every last strand of hair is inundated.

…And it feels so good.  For I realize, I’m not drowning.  I’m dancing.  I’m finally free and  dancing underwater with immeasurably more grace and elegance than I ever had on land.  Pushing the water back and then forward with my hands and legs, I glory in the weightlessness of myself.  All pressure is taken off of me and all freedom afforded to me as I move in its infinite fluidity.

So here in the deep waters of unmerited favor and unrelenting approval and acceptance, I keep my ears well under the surface and out of earshot from the oppressive voices back on shore.  I come up for a bit, just long enough to catch my breath but not enough to hear out my past.  I am not sure which way I’m going, but it’s my ocean.  Not a swimming pool lap lane.  It’s a journey, I know, and I’m still learning.  But boy am I making big strides and bold moves, fatiguing a bit but continuing to swim–wild and free and, for the most part, forward.