A Vulnerable Interlude

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's start here. God = love, right?"

"Yes…"

"And God = everything, right? There is nothing God is not."

"Yes…"

"Then, logically, God knows that He is God. God knows no fear because there is literally nothing to fear. If you're everything, then what are you going to fear? If you're all-knowing, you can't fear the unknown. If you're all-powerful, you can't fear lack. If you are eternal, then there is fundamentally no death or destruction or loss. So what is there to fear? Nothing. Because you are everything. Are you following?"

"Yes…"

"Okay, now let's talk about me. I am Nikki Durkin. I believe myself to be something in particular, and I have plenty of fear. I fear the loss of someone I love. I fear never making enough money to be happy and free because I gravitate towards creative, altruistic pursuits while holding little regard for 'the practicalities of life.' I fear never reaching my potential. I fear my business failing. I fear having to do a mindless job for the rest of my life because I couldn't cut it as an entrepreneur. I fear that I'm fundamentally unemployable and offer no tangible value to society because I have no particular skill set. I fear that if I did get a full-time job, I couldn't hold one down because my mind can't focus on the same things that society values, and I can't sit still long enough to get any mundane work done.

I fear getting sick, getting old, my body falling apart. I fear that I'm not enough — not smart enough, not successful enough, not skinny enough, not pretty enough, not kind enough, not rich enough, not brave enough, not good enough. And at the same time, I fear the polar opposite — I fear that I'm somehow too much; like God stuffed all the ingredients inside my burrito and just left me to figure out this chaotic mess. If my youth taught me one thing, it's this: the world can be very cruel to girls who are 'too much.'

I fear there is something deeply and fundamentally wrong with me, but I can't share that with anyone because no one seems to understand me. I fear that no one will ever see me for Who I Really Am, and I'll spend my entire life trapped inside a dark box of my own construction. And if the world does see me for Who I Really Am, I fear they'll misunderstand and ostracize and patronize me. I fear being medicated or thrown in a mental hospital if anyone ever witnesses what happens in my mind.

I fear the negative opinions of others. I fear disappointing my parents. I fear my own grandiosity. I fear my own potential. I fear my own ambition. I fear my own intuition, and how I just know things before I know why I know them.

I fear that other people will hate me if I tell them they're wrong, even if they obviously and irrefutably are. I fear being called a disagreeable bitch. I fear being perceived as too masculine when I assert myself in the world, and losing my soft femininity, which I highly value. I fear being called 'arrogant.' I fear the Big Boys of the scientific community waving a disapproving finger at me, saying, 'Who do you think you are, little girl?' because I have the audacity to point out the logical flaws in their life's work, while simultaneously being painfully self-aware of my own ignorance when it comes to their specific field of knowledge.

I fear outshining other people, so I keep myself small. I always have. I'm very good at staying small. I'm the queen of self-sabotage. As soon as people start commenting on how good I'm looking, or how well my business is doing, or how incredible the guy I'm dating is, I'll find a way to get rid of that good thing in my life. I'm intensely uncomfortable with being too much, having too much — and yet as soon as I get rid of something, I'll gain it back in a different form because I can't help it. I fear that I'll never overcome this neurosis, and my life will forever ricochet between nothing and everything.

I also fear that I'm fundamentally unlovable. I fear that I'll spend my entire life hiding a part of myself because no one could ever love someone like me. I fear that Who I Really Am, and the way my mind works, is embarrassing and inappropriate and shameful and wrong. I fear abandonment. I fear falling in love and having my heart broken once the man I've duped into loving me finds out how weird I really am. I want to get married and have a family, but I fear losing my freedom and independence and alone time. I fear I'll be a terrible mother because I sometimes get so lost in my own mind. But if I don't allow myself to get lost in my own mind, I fear I'll never be able to do deep creative work again.

And if I ever tell this story one day, I fear speaking my fears out loud. I fear the world will judge me for them. They say 'those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind,' but I fear even the people I love the most will judge me if they knew the truth. I fear you will judge me, Zac."

Zac paused and took it all in. "You know I don't deal well with this emotional stuff. The only way I know how to react is with a joke. Can I interest you in one of those?"

"No thanks," I smiled. "You're my best friend, and we have a lot of fun together, but there's a reason I only show you one side of myself."

Zac turned to me. "I will say this. I always knew you were smart, but when you're goofing around all the time, you just seem like such a dork. I had no idea you had all this locked away inside that mysterious brain of yours."

"Yeah, well, no one really does. People look at the fun girl in the pretty dress with the big smile, and they think they know who I am. I've been conditioned since childhood to blend in and try to be at least mildly normal if I want to connect with people, and I deeply crave human connection. No one understands what I'm talking about, anyway."

"I understand what you're talking about. You've explained it really well."

"Thanks," I said. "But I've also just commandeered your entire night. If I were to sum my thesis up in a sentence, you'd call me 'woo woo' and pass my ideas off as whimsical, feminine intuition rather than a rational conclusion."

"No, I wouldn't."

"Yes, you would. I don't know if you remember, but we've had variations of this conversation before. I start talking, you misunderstand me, then you tell me to sum it up in a sentence or two. I do, and the conclusion is so counter-intuitive that you call it 'woo woo,' which is basically a synonym for 'illogical.' I then tell you you're the illogical one, because the burden of proof is not on me, and you should have to prove your belief in materialism. You get furious when I imply that you don't understand the rules of logic, and you accuse me of the same. I try to rebut you by explaining what I mean, but to lay down the conceptual foundations for my conclusion takes hours, and, quite frankly, I'm surprised I've been able to hold your attention for so long tonight. You become impatient with my explanation, which you don't understand. Then you tell me if I can't explain it simply, I don't understand it well enough. I tell you that I can't explain it simply, because there are so many foundational concepts you need to understand before the answer will emerge, even if the answer itself is simple. Then we end up bickering, and I end up pissed off because you remind me of every single man who has ever brushed my views off as 'feminine intuition' and 'spiritual woo woo' without taking the time to understand them first. I fucking hate being called irrational. I hate it. It insinuates that I'm stupid, and I'm not."

"Oh. Do I really do that?"

"Yeah," I chuckled. "But it's not just you. Other people do it too. And I know it's not a deliberate thing with you. I know you value my opinion. If I do have something to say, you try your best to listen and understand. But it's just so difficult to communicate with people. Everything I've explained tonight — which has taken hours and hours and hours — I see in my mind all at once in a multi-dimensional non-linear way. It is insanely challenging to communicate non-linear information in a linear format, and most people aren't patient enough to give me the time of day, especially because I look like this. I don't look like someone you should take seriously on this matter."

"Well, apologies for being a dick," he shrugged.

"You're not a dick, but thanks," I said. "As frustrating as it is, it has forced me to devise more creative ways to communicate. All of my pent up rage has transformed into tonight's methodical explanation. In the words of a Taylor Swift song, 'Baby, I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me.'"