The Distance of Uncertainty

In an attempt to reduce the growing pains, I was sent by my parents to visit a friend who had specialized in all forms of therapy. I recall having a conversation about my feelings of uncertainty with the world:

“I think the difference between you and me is that you have the capability to maintain relationships but choose not to, and I? I’m brimming with so much love to give but lack a sense of normalcy.” The words suddenly spill out of my mouth like a broken faucet. 

“Care to elaborate? What do you mean by normalcy?” she questions 

“I was raised with the potential for everything, with the exception that this feeling that we humans decide to call “love” can only be granted with the condition that it is expressed coherently.”

“Hmm.” A beat passed

“Question.” 

“Go ahead,” I say

“Is knowledge determined by the value that information possesses or the clarity of what is being said?”

“Repeat that?” shortness of breath.

“Let me simplify this in terms you’ll understand. What determines value? To say, if we don’t understand the words being said. Does this mean that the meaning loses value?” She laughs, and oh what a wonderful laugh it was, a laughter filled with curiosity. 

“And how does this relate to anything about loving someone?” I ask again, the kind of question where it's easier to pretend there is a coherent answer than to actually give a response. 

“Look, I’m not going to hold your hand anymore. When I say this, I am not well. And my experiences have made me dull like a broken pencil when it comes to having healthy relationships. Or what we humans determine as health.” I pause, the words don’t stop coming. 

“I envy you. You wake up and deliberately make a conscious decision not to express the love you have, despite being rich with love. I can only dream of having the freedom, the privilege of making such a choice. I wake in a reality that I will always have the ability to love but never the choice to express it.” There, I’ve said it now. 

“Why do you persist in this pessimistic view? Don’t you feel ashamed of living with such self-pity?” she asks again.

“Embarrassment is a social construct made to refine the 'unruly', to define the boundaries of what limits us.” I try to make my point.

“Nonsense,” she laughs again.

“You patronize me, I’m not a kid anymore,” I say, coming off a lot meaner than I intended

“So you think you know yourself”, how condescending can she be?

“Yes,” I sneer, “I am me after all.”

Returned with a soft gaze, “You say to measure is to define, but isn’t labeling a paradox in itself?”

How peculiar…Stereotyping leads to stigma, but isn’t a lack of knowledge the same? Ignorance, I think. Our differences make us special, but if we don’t label, is the silence, the emptiness we have, undefined, a label in itself?

“Can order exist in a world without labels?” 

“See, you talk so much about who you are, this certainty that you are incapable of love, but isn’t the point of love to never limit? In some instances, some infinities are greater than others, but when we define, don’t we limit a certain attribute to our nature? I wonder what it takes to close that distance of uncertainty for you. To be loved by someone who makes you feel like, despite all possibilities, all outcomes, all probabilities. Isn’t the closeness of being here, among all things, perhaps better than the certain persisted gap of nothing?” She smiles again, this time a little laugh escapes her lips, the kind of laughter that makes you warm.

Little does she know that smile will be etched into my memories like a record on repeat for years to come.