Conversations

Author Note: this post was originally written March 18th, but because of no internet access, I am just now posting it. Here it is.

(the conversation occurred on March 17th)

I had a conversation with someone the other day. It was long, it was interesting and it was good. I expected it to be the first 2 things but not the last. I went into the conversation expecting certain subjects to come up, (which did) and for others to be left alone (which were not). I went into the conversation willing to put some of myself out there, in return for learning something about the other person. But yesterday the conversation didn’t work that way. By the end of the day, I was tired, bone-achingly tired. And the only thing that I could think that made me this tired was that long conversation. I really enjoyed our conversation, and I really hated our conversation. I think I hated it because I can’t get rid of it, no matter how hard I try.
I am cursed with the problem of constantly rethinking conversations. I can’t help it. No matter how small, banal, large, or important the conversation is, I will think about that conversation again. I am always going back and remembering what I said, what was said, and how I responded. I remember my facial gestures. I remember what I did with my hands. I remember where they laughed, and where they looked away. I remember where we hit points in the conversation where we totally agreed, and where we sat looking at each other in confusion. Sometimes I rework what I should have said. Sometimes I rethink what I wanted to say. Sometimes I answer the question again, this time with a lot more eloquence and poise. Sometimes I never ask the question that I asked. Sometimes I figure out what I should say if the opportunity presents itself again, down to the face and hand gestures. I rethink every conversation this way, and I don’t know how to stop. Sometimes I wish I did. Today is one of those days. While I enjoyed the conversation I don’t want it to happen again, I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to dissect it. But I can’t help it. The words keep tumbling back to me, the gestures, the faces, the laughs, the feelings, the thoughts, the rhythm, the sounds, the smell, the time, the place, the people, and the words always the words. Over and over again, I can hear the words, I can hear what I said, how I said it, I can hear what they said, and how they said it. And I don’t want to remember. I want to be like other people who can’t remember what the conversation was about. I wish the conversation had been so banal, that I wouldn’t care what I said. I wish the conversation had been so full of nothing that it didn’t matter what was remembered. But the conversation was full, it was full of me, and I hate that. I wanted the conversation to be an equal exchange of thoughts, but it wasn’t. While I learned a very small bit more about the person, they learned more about me, which wasn’t fair. Towards the end of the conversation, they summed up what they had learned. They were 62% correct (I know, it’s quite the scientific number). 62% is too large of a percentage for me to feel comfortable with.
I feel vulnerable. Vulnerability is not something I deal with very well, and it is something that I try to avoid at all costs. But today I feel vulnerable, and I hate it. How can nakedness be considered the thing that makes you feel the most vulnerable? I understand now why people can have indiscriminate sex, how they can live with and move from one person to another easily. It’s not sex that makes you vulnerable, it’s not tears that make you vulnerable, it’s not pride that makes you vulnerable, it’s not brains that make you vulnerable, it’s not even relationships that make you vulnerable. The thing that makes you truly vulnerable has and always will be conversation, always and only conversation. Real conversation is scary.