Everyone Had a Key to My Heart

On learning who gets access

‘There was a part of you that went soul-searching, wasn’t it?’ He looked at me with stern certainty.

I had never liked the word soul-searching. So I squirmed a little, uncomfortable in my train seat.

‘Doesn’t everyone who travels?’, I deflected. Trapped. I didn’t want this to be about me. I met his gaze. Held it.

‘No, I just wanted an adventure’, he answered, then looked away.

A few moments of silence. A little awkwardness, to be honest. At that time I was not good with silences yet. Then he broke it.

‘Although I have to admit, I always liked meeting you again. It’s always something new with you, you keep changing, keep looking for more. Always a good story to tell.’

I smiled, even though it was a tired one. I was grateful for this change of topic, yet still it was me he was reading, me he assumed he knew. Bubbles of sarcasm were rising in my body. Glad, that my life is entertaining for you, I should have answered. But this conversation was years ago, and I took it as a compliment, thanked him. Allowed those two comments to seep into my self-concept.

Today, I shake my head in disapproval.

It is raining and the downpour holds my gaze captive while I am remembering that trainride. Why is it that I was drawn back to that conversation?

A man told me, twice, who I am. Unasked for.

That person was a friend at that time, but I vividly remember feeling uncomfortable and weirdly small in that conversation.

Why did I come back to this? Why now?

The rain falls on the wooden furniture in the little courtyard of our Berlin flat. Fast, rhythmically.

The feeling of being small. Of being understood by others so easily, while failing to understand myself. Of missing something others seemed to already have. Searching implied lack. A deficit, as if I was not grounded, not settled, not there yet. As if not-knowing is a problem to be solved rather than a mode of being worth inhabiting. Of me listening to him even though I was tired and honestly, probably just wanted to listen to music and stare out of the train window.

Too damn polite to say so.

What a good girl.

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So today I am peeling the layers of those feelings off. Let them taste fresh air. Let me see them clearly and learn from it. Because this was not one man, one conversation. It was a pattern. Too many times. Too damn kind to let others define me.

So I was soul-searching. Wasn't I. If others find words for me more easily than I do, surely I must be missing something.

The rain is still falling, the sky is still grey.

And I am still sitting in front of the window, my tea is cold but I drink it anyway.

The niceness is leaking out of my body, like the drops of rain from the sky above.

Lately I have chosen solitude over the presence of others. I cherish it. Maybe because it gives me room to think, room to feel and to write. It also frees me of all those expectations.

Polite?

Good girl, listening to him.

Believing that apparently he knows more about me than I know about myself.

There are so many things I could have done. I could have argued with him, could have deflected more, could have turned the spotlight and have him being the receiver of questions that put his attention onto himself and away from me. But most of all, I could have decided that my time is too valuable for this and that I am not going to be there in the first place.

I notice myself shaking my head.

I was too damn open for everyone.

Everyone had a key to my heart. I let them all in. Let them all tell me what they thought, what they felt. About them, about me, about the world. Even about my most private longings, my needs, my identity, my soul, and its searching demeanour.

I listened. Of course I listened, I wanted to be a good person, I needed to be good because I needed to be liked. Insecure around others, I just needed a net of safety.

When I look outside, nothing has changed. It’s grey and there is rain.

But the grass in the small courtyard is lush, its green looks wild, alive. So soft and luxurious, I’d love to swim through it with my hands.

I don’t have to listen to everyone.

And I don't have to take everything they say seriously. I don’t have to consider it all.

For the first time in hours I see movement in the sky. The clouds are not just one bed of grey but a moving mosaic. Clouds flowing fast, must be strong currents up there. A bird that flies across the part of the sky I can see from here.

I am moved by the strength of it all, the gracefulness.

With that awe, I come back to myself. It’s just me in this room and I am grateful for it. How little I once examined what I’d absorbed from others. All those words, those emotions I thought were mine. Put there by others. Me not knowing better. Young and without any boundaries.

A pleasing mess, easy to access.

Who am I angry at? Him? Or me, not having learned how to stand up for myself ? It wasn’t even that bad. Except it was, because I continuously stayed in conversations too long. In places that didn’t quite fit.

And my voice. Oh, my precious voice.

Was I soul-searching? I mislike the word because it suggests that something is lacking. I was lacking, though, as painful as it sounds. I was yet to allow myself to dive back into my passions. To let them take up space. My voice. My singing. My writing. And cut everything from my life that keeps that part of me small.

No man on a train, no friend, no journey across the other side of the world however, could give me what I was missing.

Shaking my head, yet again.

Will the rain ever stop falling?

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Who told you who you were? I'm curious.