I have always wanted more.
To say that is most likely not spiritually correct for many readers. And the fact remains: I have always wanted more.
I was directly shamed for that as a child. I would dream of more. Speak of more. Long for more. My authority figures would look down at me literally and metaphorically as they asked, “who do you think you are?” The words were dripping with shame and landed in my solar plexus with a deadening thud.
And so I did my best to suppress this ever-persistent desire for more. When I couldn’t suppress it, I did my best to at least hide it. I eventually came to realize that the more I tried to suppress and hide the inner-more the stronger it became. Like Oliver to the headmaster I would slink forward and speak through gritted teeth “more please?”
Though in my youth I wanted more of material things and exhilarating experiences the more has simplified and yet intensified into a longing of more awareness, more feeling, and more connection. I want to experience more of me, and I want to experience more of you. Not the you that is image-based. Not the you that you think you must be or the role you must play to fit in. I want the totality of you. The whole you. The unfettered and unmasked you. Just as I want to know fully the beyond imaged, total, unmasked and whole me.
In an age of social media and seemingly boundless disconnection this desire is not easily met. You have shown me postings of what is on your dinner plate. Now I want to see what is in the depths of your heart. I want to know what you want more of. What makes you giggle, ache, long, and wince. I want to know the dreams you secretly dream, and the barely buried fears that the time for those dreams to realize is past. I want to know how you were shamed. I want to know for what you were praised, and what you most want to hide.
I gulp slightly as I type the words that in order to know more of you, I am willing to show more of me. I am willing to, if only for a moment at a time, take off my image, my armor, my masks. I am willing to be seen, touched, known. I am willing to meet you heart to heart.
In meeting you heart to heart my desire for more is realized. We are more together than we could ever be separately. It’s a risk, I know. It takes courage for sure.
Real meeting real. Whole meeting whole. Depth meeting depth. More meeting more.
And I have always wanted more.
