Scary Close-Reflections For Finding True IntimacySample

The Distracting Noises of Insecurity

WHEN BETSY ARRIVED IN ASHEVILLE, I’D HARDLY talked to another human being in weeks. I felt like a scuba diver having to come to the surface when she asked a question.

We were sitting by the pond in front of the cabin when she asked how I could spend so much time alone. She said her friends admired my ability to isolate for a book’s sake but wondered whether it was healthy. I don’t think she was worried. She just found the ability foreign.

I thought about it and told her something I’d learned about myself in the year I spent pursuing her. I’d learned my default mode was to perform. Even in small groups I feel like I have to be “on.” But when I’m alone my energy comes back. When I’m alone I don’t have to perform for anybody.

Here’s a thought that haunts me: What if we are designed as sensitive antennas, receptors to receive love, a longing we often mistake as a need to be impressive? What if some of the most successful people in the world got that way because their success was fueled by a misappropriated need for love? What if the people we consider to be great are actually the most broken? And what if the whole time they’re seeking applause they are missing out on true intimacy because they’ve never learned how to receive it?

Only a few times in our lives do we get to know, in the moment, the impact of the moment itself. Robert Frost didn’t tell us the fork in the road is easier seen in hindsight. But I knew I could either let Betsy really get to know me, or I could dance a jig and burn out like so much false love. And the decision would affect not only our relationship, but our future children’s mental health, the lives of our friends, and perhaps, in some mysterious way, all of eternity.

I don’t mean to overstate what is yet unknown, but part of me believes when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it. And all the rest, the distracting noises of insecurity and the flattery and the flashbulbs will flicker out like a turned-off television.