Yours in Vulnerability,

Dear Reader,

I haven't done one of these in a while. How have you been? And the people you love? Do they know that you love them? I once wrote a short Facebook post about how i suspect that there is a community living within us, is your community at peace?

I do not mean to trigger you but as i grow, i am figuring out just how important these things are, love and peace and community. Speaking of community, i actually would like to talk about the community outside, if you don't mind.

So i have a very good friend in my life who has just been a blessing in ways i cannot begin to mention. What have they done that could possibly warrant getting such a compliment you ask? This friend of mine planted a seed in me, of truth and freedom that can be found in vulnerability . They taught me the value of being honest and vulnerable to the people you like and want to keep in your life.

The way they honestly expressed themselves led me to do the same with them which made our friendship a sort of hiding place for me. A refuge from all my other friendships where i felt the need to pretend and keep people at arm's length. I just kept wondering in my head, how can it be possible that we do this? Are we not humans? Are we not supposed to hide behind our pride and egos? It didn't make sense to me that i could just communicate what exactly was bothering me and openly show emotions as they came. As time went on, i started realising just how awesome this was because i could completely express myself in the friendship and that is all i could ever want, because you see i struggle with expressing myself so much you'd swear i am not a writer! In fact, i once got into an arguement with someone and they told me that i wasn't expressing myself properly and i felt triggered. Because it made me fear expressing myself at all because i don't want my message to be misunderstood, so it felt better to just say nothing. But seeing my friend just lay it all down like that, made me realise that there is no "proper" way to do it. The important thing is that you keep the other party up-to-date with how you are currently feeling and how they can help you feel better. This, i realised, is what builds friendships.

And so i realised that if i had done this with all my other relationships, i wouldn't have so many neglected friends and dying friendships. Thing is, God has always blessed me with good quality people to love, but because i am a liar for the sake of self-preservation i can never keep them. I either push them away or just watch them slowly dry up and not say anything. This friend of mine came at a time when i had so many friendships that were dying and i am ashamed that it took me so long to realise that i was being encouraged to apply this theory there.

Now, i know that if he was here he'd probably tell me that he didn't mean for me to start telling everybody my business but i might kind of be doing that now. I have a list of people i love who need to hear the truth about me and why I've been such a horrible friend and a worse human being. There are people to whom i need to lay it all
down because they are honestly such beautiful human beings who did nothing but love me when i didn't know that i was worth it. Maybe it's a risk and some of them might shun me and some friendships may be broken beyond repair but i still want to try. Because this is what love does. It perserves. And i am so grateful that i had a friend to show me that.


My beautiful reader,
Tell your tribe you love them and that you are scared that they have left you behind and that it makes you bitter sometimes and that sometimes you want to run away because you feel like the loser friend who can't achieve anything. Tell them you apologise and that you appreciate that they poured into you despite the fact that you were a broken cup at the time and couldn't love them back the way they truly deserve.

To said friend,
You honestly had no business being such an awesome friend and yet here we are. 2018 was to be the year that i find my words and use them and i thought this meant only in terms of creative writing, but, turns out i am meant to find my words in my relationships as well. Thank you so much for making our friendship a safe space where i could honestly be myself and express myself with no ego involved. Such spaces are hard to find but you showed me the key and I'm going to use it to unlock the love in my other friendships. You are such a blessing and because i am also trying to learn how not to hold on to love with a closed fist, i release you to do the same to other people. I know for a fact that the world would be a better place if we all just wore our hearts on our sleeves.

And finally, to my broken and dried up friendships, I'm coming at you with a bucket full of love and gross emotions that are going to revive you back to life.

I hope you're ready.


Yours in vulnerability and love and
poetry,
Siboe.