I cry. I lie.

Last night, my family and I watched a movie called Big Fish.

I cried. 
The movie is beautiful. 
The story is tragic. 
The ending is lovely.

Movie ending warning… do not read if you don’t know the end and care to watch the movie not knowing blatant hints at the ending.

The father and son didn’t understand each other. More specifically, the son struggled to understand his father’s flexible relationship with stories’ truths and accuracies in favor of splendor and wonder. As the father lay on his death bed, the son realized the beauty of his father’s emphasis on wonder.

As mentioned throughout the movie, his father had a goal of dying a specific way, and the son takes a wonderful (in all meanings of the word) stab at storytelling to help his father’s reality come true — the moment before his father passes away.

This wrecked me. I cried. More specifically, I ugly-face cried without the ability to be silent in the way I cried. It’s almost definitely for more complex reasons than I understand or have yet come to terms with, but it was so beautiful and sad. Death is beautiful and sad. I’m confused by it.

I remember holding my dad’s hand as he died. I think about it every day. I miss him more than words will ever communicate. I cry about his absence often.

As I lay there crying about a scene in a movie, my six and eight-year-old boys were sitting next to me and took particular notice of my crying. They were likely confused about why this moment moved me to tears.

I was most impacted by the fact that my eight-year-old said, “so… THAT’S how you cry.”

This hit me in a different way. Had I not been vulnerable around them?! I try to be.

I work hard to be vulnerable and as emotional as I know how to be, but when my son indicated that he hadn’t seen me cry (at least to the degree that was notable to him), it made me think about vulnerability.

Quick side-note: I thought I cried in front of them, and Carrie said she also believed I cried in front of them as well. I never meant to hide tears from my boys, but at the very least, it was the first time it was notable to them.

At the risk of pretending highly-emotional moments causing tears is a high sign of real vulnerability, I’m going to transition to processing the concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability has been a lot on my mind as I’ve been publicly posting about autism and things I’m struggling with and enjoying.

Vulnerability can be difficult, be awkward, and feel unsafe. It’s the opposite of unsafe. The lack of vulnerability is unsafe.

Vulnerability is the superpower of honest confidence.
The lack of vulnerability is a safe haven for lies.

We’re all lacking vulnerability in some ways, and in the same light, we all lie to ourselves and others on some level (often unintentionally and unknowingly).

As I grow as a person, I hope to be continually more honest about my struggles, and in turn, continually struggle less.

Increasing vulnerability is an uncomfortable process with gains and pains, but I want to continually “vulnerablize” myself. I’d rather know me and not an invulnerable version of me. The invulnerable version is a damned lie.