Scary Close

It makes me wonder how many people have damaged their own lives by mistaking enablement for grace?

I only say this because a positive evolution happened in my life when I realized healthy relationships happen best between healthy people. I’m not just talking about romance either. I’m talking about friendships, neighbors, and people we agree to do business with.

I’m the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world—so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens.

It’s no wonder I hid from the world. It’s no wonder parties made me tired or I got exhausted after I spoke. It’s no wonder criticism made me angry or I overreacted to failure. I think the part of me I sent out to interact with the world was, in some ways, underdeveloped, still trying to be bigger and smarter as a measure of survival.

The root systems of these lies we tell ourselves tend to grow together. It’s all connected with the belief human love is conditional. But human love isn’t conditional. No love is conditional. If love is conditional, it’s just some sort of manipulation masquerading as love.

The problem is this: those of us who are never satisfied with our accomplishments secretly believe nobody will love us unless we’re perfect.

I thought about that, then, about how much I fear change, even change for the better. I thought about how there are so many lies in fear. So much deception. What else keeps us from living a better story than fear?

I like what Viktor Frankl wrote, about how we aren’t designed to spend too much time thinking about ourselves, that we are healthier when we’re distracted by a noble cause.

I kept reminding myself the only way Betsy and I would make it is if I learned to trust her with those silences, if I learned to trust the reason she was marrying me wasn’t to be entertained but to exchange love—that long, boring love that happens when a couple quietly eats cereal together while they read the paper.

But when we got back in the car at the end of the night, she leaned into my shoulder and held my arm and I realized she’d liked the guy a lot—but she loved me. And as we drove home she held my hand and it was obvious she was having a bonding moment, as though all the pleasantness of the evening, even the other guy’s humor, only meant something because she’d shared it with me. And for once I was glad I wasn’t the guy doing the entertaining. Somebody else had to go back to the green room that night and obsess over his performance. I got to go home with the girl.
I began to wonder what life would be like if I dropped the act and began to trust that being myself would be enough to get the love I needed.