Vulnerability: A Parable on Giving and Receiving

Darryl Silvestri wrote this to me a few months ago in an attempt to explain vulnerability in a relationship.

I want you to imagine you are playing the egg toss game.  This is love. You stand across from you partner right up close and you gently hand the egg over to her. And she pauses and gently hands it back. This is the beginning of love. we are simply learning the vulnerability of giving our love (very small, very slow) and having our love received. we also learn how to receive the love our partner is giving. This is where trust begins. You begin to trust that that love you give will be received and that she will give you love and you will receive. You are learning that process and trusting each other that you can do that together. So you begin to move farther apart still the giving, still the receiving. Now imagine you are no longer in a field. You are now in your house. Life carries on. You wake up in bed together. The giving, the receiving. Getting ready in the bathroom together, passing each other in the kitchen while getting your breakfast and coffee. The giving, the receiving. The egg being passed back and forth. at work: the texts, emails, gchats, snapchats…the egg can move through our screens. The giving, the receiving. life becomes busier. Faster. Still the two of you are becoming so skilled. You know each other, you trust where the other will be. The egg is handed off in the most peculiar and acrobatic ways. The giving, the receiving.  Sometimes…the egg is dropped. It breaks. It happens from time to time. You get another egg and continue on…then twice in the same month. Hm. Weird. You go on a weekend away. The giving, the receiving. Life continues. The pace continues. The acrobatics continue. Eggsflying across living rooms, being caught.  But more eggs are being dropped than ever. If i give it, will she catch it? Still the giving, the receiving. then one day…trauma. All eggs are dropped. All attempts fail. Trust has evaporated. And finally eggs stopped being passed.

This is the relearning of what it feels like to be really close and to very slowly receive the egg she is handing to you: not 100% sure if the other will accept it. You both have to start over and simply remember what it feels like to just hand over your love and have your love received; to just allow the other to give you love and to receive it. Very small, very slow. The giving, the receiving. It could be anything…a simple meal? Sure.  It doesn’t matter what it is. The point is the process. The point is simply the giving and the receiving.