wall or no wall

I'm an introspective-type person, so it always astounds me when I figure out something new about myself.
It's always something that I had a hint of before, but have re-learned in a different way.

It's a slap in the face when someone tells you something they see in you, or something that they think that you are based on who you've been around them...and then you realize that you must be putting off a different personality, because what they've related isn't you.

I've never been a really open person, to any degree, and I feel that only a few (a handful, maybe) of people have ever gotten to really know me, because I let my guard down.

Just looking through my life now, I wish it was more like a collapsible room-dividing screen rather than a wall that I've worked to perfect throughout my life.
Not too thin that it can just be blown down by an unexpected comment, but not too thick so as to never be able to find my way back.
But it would just be so much easier if it wasn't there...only to be put up when situations arise.

What is life if you can't share it with those that are beside you?

Who are you if everything is just a private joke that you never take the time to share?



But then again, who actually wants to listen.
Most people are on their own road, stopping for a while to relate their life to you.
But their road, no matter the actual size, seems a small path to them, winding through the woods...so taking the time away from figuring out their way seems preposterous.

My life does feel like a switch-back trail sometimes but I'd like to think that I can break out of my head sometimes to just be..
I don't want to look back on my life to see that I've been walled-up and staring at the ground a foot in front of me, instead of looking all around me and connecting to what's nearest to me.

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receeding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

-R.S. Thomas