Big little lies

It is said that a friend is someone with whom one can be sincere, have no secrets, show their true self. But trusting is hard, risking exposure with no knowledge of what consequences that will bring is often a reality too frightening to handle.

Despite what we like to believe, we never know anyone 100%. Everyone has their secrets, their dark places where they're drawn to sometimes, a sense of overwhelming loneliness that strikes them from times to times. People pretend well, quite often we live in constant denial, and we go through life side by side with people we care about more than we can ever show, and at the same time we know so little about each other, about what really matters, about the demons that keep them awake at night. I think that was what shocked me the most as I grew up, the realization that people are so much more than what we see beneath the surface, that we are all so much deeper and complex than we pretend to be, how oblivious we can be to someone’s struggles and pain.

We all have secrets, deep dark thoughts we don’t share, fears we don’t want to admit. It’s human nature, to protect ourselves and the things we love, so whether because we don’t want to worry people, because we feel no-one can possibly understand us, because we’re ashamed, afraid, or simply due to an utter inability to open up, we clamp up and we go on with our lives, day after day, with a smile in our face that disguises the agony that we face inside.

Everyone has stories they never tell, and a lot of times they're kept hidden not because they don't trust the ones around them, but because they don't trust themselves. Fear is a force that drives us more than we realize, and the fear of letting people down or being hurt is often behind the reason we keep our secrets so well hidden. And yes, friends should be the ones you trust to support you no matter what, but this fear of disappointment doesn’t usually come from having friends that don't love us enough to accept us, it comes from the fact that we don't  love ourselves enough to believe we are worthy of their love despite our flaws.

We are the ones blocking the trust, we avoid exposure because we see vulnerability as a weakness, thought the reality is that it takes an unmeasurable amount of courage to be comfortable in that place.