My Nest of Intimacies

I've recently done a lot of emotional heavy-lifting around a few relationships. Staying awake for long late night phone calls after already fallen asleep once; wincing in recognition to a truth being related to me that is so surprisingly hurtful that it causes physical pain; sitting in tense silence for several minutes during a hard conversation; reaching out to friends whose feedback I trust when I was triggered and disoriented from anger; these sorts of things. I used to view these moments as a kind of work but now they are just another Tuesday night.

I am apparently a person who likes to create intimacy the same way some people like to build ship replicas--with painstaking meticulousness. I've noticed this quality about the relationships that I form since high school. It has attracted some amazing people into my life as well as dangerous people. And yet, almost a decade later, I'm still naive about its power. I've been separated from three close friends in the last three years from a particular pattern which always ends in an abrupt falling-out. It is as confusing as it is self-serving. Typically, not longer after I separate from one friend, I soon find another person with whom I connect, and then begin building intimacy around again. It is both destructive and regenerative.

In the last month different people have described my way of doing intimacy as "overwhelming," " a beautiful offering," and something like vulnerability. If put these descriptions together and in that order I think that is about right.

I am honestly a little afraid to touch it right now (as in share it with anyone new) because I've been conditioned, especially from people who I've regrettably hurt, to treat my intimacy like poison. Seductively pervasive, unnoticeable, and fatal.  At the same time my intimate relationships, like most others, are of the best kind--the most fulfilling and rewarding, so part of me is asking why give that up? In fact, my friend's reassurance that my ability to be so deeply intimate was a "beautiful gift" allowed me to relate to it more positively for the first time, ever.

When reflecting on my current capacities though, I am open to sharing lots of love in my life, which, I am taught and immediately feel, is of endless supply. But I feel as though I have to ration my intimacy for the first time, taking to it the same meticulousness with which I am used to building it. And that feels sad.