I'm silly for even considering he might be into me.

My heart beats faster when I talk to him.  I don't know.  I feel the humility of high school in his presence.  I want to say I'm better.  I want to be more than I am.  I spend extra time thinking about what I'm going to wear.  I get all nervous when I'm standing next to him.  And I think to myself, "I'm silly for even considering he might be into me."

What is the mechanism that protects hearts?  What is the part of me that craves his warmth?  His body next to mine at night.

I fantasize about it.  That sweet opportunity to cuddle up together and keep each other. 

I stumble into fresh insecurities with the interaction.  They bring me closer to something like a feeling of not being good enough, which might be the same as wanting to be better.

What does better look like?  Well, as much as I would like to stretch my beauty around someone and seduce him with intoxicating visuals, self improvement does not hinge on the tenuous nature of my physical condition.

When I'm honest and I think of "better,"  things become more clear.  I cannot pretend to be confused about what I would like to do.  Instead, I medicate my way away from knowing how to grow or I suck it up, brave the terrifying excitement of discipline.

***

Being born is cold.  Icy air stinging at the face and raw body, accustomed to a wholly different state of matter. 

We think about birth as a passive process, something magically linear, dependent upon the mother's body alone.  There are two people existing in one.   The mother, while in many cases relieved at no longer having to incubate another, might not be the only one pushing.  The baby is as active a participant in birth as its host.  If this is understood to be true, all of us at one time - even though we don't remember it - had to respond to some highly intelligent call to action. 

What kind of courage is it that might inspire breathing air after an existence of aquatic inhalation?  Can you imagine the kind of trust required to go into the water and begin breathing?  It is as much a death as a birth, an irrefutable trust in the world.  A recognition that you are part of it.

***

When I fantasize about what I could be - or do, I see it requires a great deal of change.  It is necessary to find that courage and trust, go in and practice being terrifically terrified. 

If it's hard to know what direction that might be, if the voices in your head are yelling all kinds of contradictory advice and there is an undeniable and confusing pull toward expansion, try thinking of this…

1.  Say you met someone that made your heart beat faster, that reminded you of high school humility, you spoke loud and awkwardly in his or her presence, laughing during uncomfortable pauses, thinking all the while, "I'm silly for even considering he might be into me."  If you could be your most beautiful self, how would that be? 

2.  What is the most beautiful compliment you can imagine receiving?  What could someone say to you that would touch you so deeply your body could not hold it in?  You would have to let it become real?  What is it that someone sees in you? 

Follow that.