Vulnerability

I feel like nowadays people are too scared to discuss the things that truly matter to them. Lately I have felt like vulnerability is lost..

It’s interesting to me because there are very few people in my life that I think know the true version of me. There’s crazy Elaina, wannabe pop star Elaina, Pizza Equals Life Elaina, Twitter famous Elaina, Instagram obsessed Elaina, nerdy computer geek Elaina, and then there’s just….me.

There are so many versions of myself that people see, but who am I as a whole? Many of you know bits and pieces of who I am. I would say about 90% of you see the funny comedic side of me, and about 10% see the true authentic version that I display only to my close friends.

I was having a deep conversation the other day with my best friend and it truly kept me up at night thinking about vulnerability and how we present ourselves to one another. My friend and I were chatting and I explained how over the years, I have learned to numb my heart when it came to having close friends. She didn’t understand what I meant by that, so I explained that after losing so many best friends over the years, and losing friends I thought would never leave my side, I pushed myself to become numb when it came to relationships I had with people in my life. I trained myself to feel like everything and everyone is temporary. I have only two close best friends that know every different side of me, but they also know the true authentic version of myself that I don’t show most people. I trained myself to not let people see the deep side of me in fear of them walking out of my life just like everyone else has. Ultimately, this has made me feel lost, secluded, and alone.

I want to fully be the most authentic and unapologetic version of myself on this website (and from now on in general.) I pride myself on creating this blog as a space where people can see the most truthful version of who I am. Not just the funny Elaina, or the Instagram Elaina….just me.

I hate that for so many years I trained myself to feel numb to others because I felt like everyone would just eventually give up on the real me and leave. I feel stupid for seeing friends in my life as temporary just because I am afraid of them not finding me good enough to keep in their life. That’s not who I want to be anymore.

I think my most recent loss of a “friend” tore me to shreds because for the first time in forever I found someone that I truly thought would not disappear out of my life. I looked at this person as someone permanent in my life, and when that person left…it broke my heart. That person saw every single part of who I am. They saw the good days, bad days, knew everything about my past and the person I strive to be in the future. When this person told me I wasn’t good enough, well..I believed it. I fell apart and I continued to see the temporary versions of everyone else in my life. Every friend I would talk to I would automatically think in my head “How long until you leave me and give up on me?”

But life isn’t about who stays or who leaves you. I learned that it doesn’t matter how long someone is in your life for. The truest and most sincere friends will never leave you. One day you will find your Prince Charming who thinks the purest version of who you are is beautiful. He won’t run away even if you give him every reason to. He will see your flaws and think that you are beautiful and perfect for everything you are. You will make best friends who never leave you, but instead stay and hold you through the tough times.There will be people in your life that are thrown on your path in order to teach you lessons throughout the journey of your life.

It took some time, but I finally understand- being vulnerable to people, whether they are temporary or permanent is never a bad thing. We are so focused on showing people the filtered versions of us that we forget who we are, and most importantly we lose who we are. We are human. We feel. We hurt. We cry when we’re sad, and we laugh when we are happy. We have feelings, and we shouldn’t feel the need to constantly hide them anymore. Sometimes losing someone you love brings you close to someone you never knew you needed.

Opening your heart up can be scary, but I’m not so scared anymore. There’s more to me than a carefully VSCO filtered Instagram picture.

xo, Elaina