Opening Hearts

I just finished reading an article (published in O The Oprah Magazine, August, 2010) adapted from the book “Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship” by Gail Caldwell. It describes a friendship between the author and Caroline Knapp, another writer. The article gives a glimpse into their friendship, and a snapshot into Gail’s grief after Caroline dies at the age of 42. What the article brought to me was the realization of how most of us live our lives with a guarded or even closed heart, and the friendship between these two women was a beautiful example of living with an open heart.

Gail describes their friendship as “something intangible and even spooky…that could make strangers mistake us for sisters or lovers.” Why do we often reserve such love and open-heartedness for one significant other (lover) or a family member (sister)? Seems like a silly question, when I already know the answer if fear. We fear being hurt. We fear judgment. We fear letting others in that deeply because they may not like who we really are. We fear others thinking we are gay (not that there is anything wrong with that!) if we share emotional intimacy with a same-gender friend. We fear other’s judging an emotionally intimate friendship with someone of the opposite gender as “inappropriate.” We live in a society that likes to reserve emotional intimacy for a select few, usually in a family dynamic, and even then that can be a stretch. How often do we truly reveal our hearts, hopes, desires, fears and dreams with those we say we are close to? Heck, how often do we take the time to share these things with ourselves? We seem to be a society that fears vulnerability. It seems to me we like to associate the fact that we can hug, kiss and tell someone we love them as being emotionally intimate. I believe true intimacy is revealing oneself on a deeper level, moving past the fear of judgment, and accepting others as they are...however that is revealed in any given moment…it’s giving each other a safe place to just be. This isn’t to say we reveal our deepest selves to everyone we meet…discernment is good self-care and there is often some sort of commonality that brings people together. But it is to say when we feel a special connection to another human being, let’s allow ourselves to take it a little deeper…over time so we feel safe. It is also to say in every day life, allow your heart to shine through a smile or hello to a stranger on the street, the person who held the door open for you, or the server who just brought you a meal. You never know how your openness will help another.

I have no idea if these two women lived their entire lives with an open heart, or if it was something just between them, but what a beautiful example this friendship is.