no one wants to be Jericho

I was just wondering about how many of us don't like to be too predictable. We like a happy balance of both, but when people want to keep a relationship exciting, they tend to start over-valuing unpredictability in the other's personality or behavior. I guess, deep down, everyone really does like surprises.

But what's so bad about being predictable? I can understand how one might find someone with an extremely static lifestyle and set of manners completely lacking in any fire in their hearts. But when it gets to that stage in a relationship where your significant other (they're probably considered significant at this point) can predict many of your behaviors, what's wrong with that? Is it the urge to play mind games, to constantly be ahead of the other person?

Do we not like it when people know us that well?

It may all come down to putting up walls. For a species whose members consider themselves such "social creatures," we sure like our defense systems. I haven't known, or even just met, one person in my whole life who doesn't keep a huge pile of bricks and a ton of mortar in the corners of their minds, just in case something hits and takes a section of a wall down. Some people just have low retaining walls. Other people have three lead walls, each eight feet thick, with a fully armed and operating missile silo at the center, ready for combat. Now that I think about it, mine are probably like the twelve walls that are supposed to surround the city of New Jerusalem, after the Second Coming of Christ, each made of a different precious jewel; I mean, if you're going to keep people out, at least give them something pretty to look at while they're sitting out there, waiting for the gates to open. (Eleven times out of twelve, they won't.)

I remember getting feedback from my acting coach while going through last year's training sequence that basically boiled down to this: "You're not letting yourself open up." As far as Meisner went, I would be fine finding an activity that I connected to, but I would be so worried about how the whole session would go that I would fail to really connect with whoever my activity partner was that day. I heard this same feedback from Tom when we would all get into discussions about acting and theatre over the summer. Thankfully, I made tremendous progress, in my book and in my instructors', especially during the last quarter of those trials. And maybe I've made some progress in real life, as well.

But for all my paranoia and my want for others to reach out to me, I don't stretch out my own arms nearly far enough. If I did, I could stretch them all the way to the other coast right now. Reaching out with that little drummer of a muscle in my chest won't be enough, because no one can see that. Even you can't see that.

Oh, and sure, we all have our reasons. Get close enough to anyone with castle walls and they may let you cross the moat; they'll probably tell you what exactly happened in their life that warranted such a construction. I'm not saying I blame anyone for protecting their hearts or their sanities. Hell, mine was a slow construction; it took a lot of howls in the night, and a few bombardments, to sanction my keep, and there may still be some building going on, new gates being put up and such.

It doesn't matter how many or how few trust issues you have. Everyone puts them up. If nothing significant has happened in our personal timelines to make us want to barricade ourselves within our bodies, it's because we've watched everyone else--everyone close--get knocked down, and not recover right away, if at all.

But how often do we hear or know of people who don't know if they're in love with someone, or who are in love but don't know how to convey it to the other person, because they're afraid to come out? How many people do we know who, sometimes unintentionally, play hide and seek with the ones they love and care for by hiding under those extra layers of skin, that tough hide that we sometimes force ourselves to grow? What happens if no one ever finds you?

For all our talk about needing each other and each other's love to survive, we are all walking fortresses. And none of us wants to be the one that comes tumbling down.