I am a see-through person.

 I’ve worked hard to be this way, to be so much of myself that most can see me exactly who I am as I exist in front of them, so long as they’re paying attention. I used to think it was too much, that being who I am pushed people away. Now, this is what keeps me alive, although I remember a time where it almost killed me.

I understand how it can be quite disconcerting to look through the surface of someone and see exactly who they are: their beliefs, values, failures, fears, strengths, and intentions. I understand it, even though it made making friends as a young kid tough sometimes. All my cards were on the table. This is what you see, this is what you get. That kind of honesty is unusual, and the tightrope between conformity and vulnerability is one I have never walked well. Too much of me, too little. I didn’t mind sitting alone on the bus if it meant I belonged to myself fully. I trusted I would find my people somewhere, someday.

Even so, continuing to belong to myself was difficult as a teenager. I really wrestled with who I wanted to be and who I let get close to me. I swung the other direction and belonged to everyone except myself. I learned quite acutely that self-betrayal is a cruel killer. I was dissolving slowly, right in front of the people I was dying for. I spent my sixteenth year feeling utterly unseeable, even though it felt like all of my organs were living outside of my body. My heart begged to be recognized. But how to ask that of someone? How could I be known? I didn’t know how to express my misery, and no one asked to understand it.

I drudged through the halls and ate lunch with a geeky, shy, metal-head programmer, who you’ll learn would be my companion in the abyss. He understood that my quiet had nothing to do with him and sat with me in the quiet anyways. I don’t remember why we ate together. We just did. He was the one person that year who saw straight through my skin and didn’t turn away. Our table was a half-circle of gray slate, waxy with sealant, two hardback chairs facing each other. We spoke and we didn’t. He typed away on a run-down laptop while my head rested heavy on my hands, watching him. Thinking. We’d look at each other and I’d wonder if he understood. Sometimes I would get up and wander out to my car, climb in the front seat and stare at my hands, shaking. How am I going to get through this day? Then I’d drag my body back into the building, sparkless. I drove home slowly at the end of the day and stopped at every yellow light, even when people slammed their horns to pressure me forward. Never in a rush, never wanting to be anywhere. My eyes vacant and wet all the time, one breath away from melting into the floor.

He and I spoke on the phone last night and remembered that year, how he anchored me in it. He remembers it differently than I do, the intensity of my sadness running as a quiet constant in the background of our friendship. I thought it was my sole soul identifier, but he reminded me that I was much more than melancholy. I was funny. I was intelligent. I was present. I was alone, but in another way, we had each other. We don’t have anyone in our lives until we do. There isn’t a time we can point to and say, “That was the moment we belonged to each other.” It’s just how it is.

Now, he wonders aloud if he needs me too much. He is struggling and we spend most of our phone calls these days working to understand and unravel his suffering. Is he too much of himself, now? I remind him of that bitter, dark stretch of days where it was my suffering we sat with. We keep each other alive. I tell him what a gift it is to be able to see him so fully, and that I don’t judge his shadows. We cry, we move forward. He tells me I’m the only one who knows him this way. This makes me rich with sorrow. I wish more people were brave enough, and perhaps kind enough, to look into his eyes and get curious about the person living behind them.

I know a few people who would say that they are a good judge of character. Within a handful of minutes, they could assess with relative certainty if the person in front of them is someone worth spending more time with. I get that. Sometimes this is because they have encountered duplicitous people before and are thereby more vigilant when integrating new ones into their lives – fair enough. However, I notice that we speak about this phenomenon with a particular vocabulary. We often say that we can “see right through” someone. Voices ripe with disapproval, their behavior is framed as a subtle, failed attempt at deceit.

I understand that in these cases, people are generally resisting the incongruencies of someone’s actions and their words. “Seeing right through them” is to notice someone’s inconsistencies and regard them with skepticism. An understandable practice, certainly. In some scenarios, this discovers a conscious act of deception and thereby allows us to be more intentional and informed about who we build relationships with. They have not been authentic with us, and as such, are not currently worthy of our trust or time. Or so we believe.

“I can see right through you.” becomes, “I don’t believe you.” becomes, “I don’t trust you. I don’t like you. You aren’t who you say you are.” Within a short span of time, we have observed, evaluated, and chosen a path forward without that person. Sure, this is well within your right, as we each get to choose who we build in and block out of our social circles. I won’t fault you for it, but I will challenge you on it.

What if we were more curious? What would we discover about these ‘see-through’ people if we made a choice to ask about their inner self? I’m asking this because I was a see-through person. I had a false front. I was a paper body, one match-strike away from bursting into flames, but even so, I wore my skin like armor. And if you had met me at sixteen, perhaps you would have understood me to be hollow, one-dimensional, and lifeless. If only it were that simple.

I had oceans inside me. I felt so strongly. I was deeply and wonderfully capable of love, of belonging, of being part of a greater whole. I needed someone to see straight through me; all it would have taken was someone getting curious about why that part of me was living below the surface. My friend sat with me in my suffering but he did not ask about it. I was lucky that I found the strength to pull myself up and out of the trenches using the power of my own curiosity. I asked and answered the hard questions through the combined power of sheer will and a great therapist.  

This has made me wonder about the consequences of building (or not building) relationships based on our suspicions. Suspicion and assumption are two halves of the same coin. At some level, we believe we can assess someone more accurately than how they could tell or show us. What is the consequence of this assumption? I believe people show us exactly who they are, sometimes in little glimpses and other times all at once. Why then, do we turn away from them, the see-through people? I think it is because it’s difficult to hold their complexities. The truth is not simple. Understanding them requires us to reckon with our own complexities and inconsistencies.

I so desperately wanted to be known, but prevented anyone from knowing me because it was far, far too vulnerable. It would have cracked my heart wide open after it had already been broken. Self-preservation is a survival instinct, and I was in survival mode. In part, shuttering myself off from the world by becoming opaque was my own choice. I walked that path because I decided it was the safest way forward. However, I wonder what would have happened that year if someone had caught a glimpse of me leaking out into the world and been courageous enough to ask me what was all that liquid doing underneath my skin.

We are walking contradictions. We are conditioned people. We present ourselves in one way and yet, the rivers of us roar deep underneath. We are dying to be seen and yet, remain invisible. What are we afraid of? The fear of judgment will only fade as more of us choose not to judge. How are we to know what is true about someone? It’s easy to assess and dismiss them based on our assumptions. Instead of walking away, can we ask better questions? Will you choose to walk towards the inconsistencies of someone with love and curiosity? Can you challenge your own beliefs?

And to each of us who are dying to be seen – can you make yourself more visible? Can you become transparent? I challenge you to be more open. I believe you can be more vulnerable. Waiting for someone to demonstrate trustworthiness before you show them who you are is a valiant quest, but perhaps a lonely one.

Trust the people, and they will become trustworthy.

Let yourself be seen and watch how you are recognized.

See through someone and watch as they tell you the truth.  

I believe that to “see right through someone”, to see someone as they truly are, deep inside their center, is an honor. If only we could all be transparent. If only we could all see straight through each other, right to the core. We would all be a bit easier to love, a little more gentle on a fellow stranger.

Yet the vocabulary frames transparency as a failure. A failure that they didn’t shield themselves from us properly, that we were able to see into who they are too quickly, that they have accidentally poured themselves all over us. And then, we reject them on the basis that they have lied to us.

Have they? Have they lied to you? Or have you seen into a part of them that was begging to be seen? Did you get a glimpse under the armor? What if they are not revealing duplicity but rather, a deeper inner life?

I’m asking us to change how we think about authenticity. We are as authentic as we give ourselves permission to be. The extent to which we let ourselves live in our own light is contingent on how much we trust. Permission to be ourselves is tied up in how people have historically demonstrated their care for us. There are a thousand reasons to shield our most authentic selves from a stranger, and even so, I’m choosing to challenge this. As much as we would like to believe so, trust cannot only be earned. Giving trust first takes faith, too. Do you have faith that you are worth loving? Do you believe you are worthy of being seen? Will you believe that humanity is good, that a stranger deserves your trust, that your vulnerability will reward you in the end?

It is practically impossible see someone in all that they are and not love them. In our full complexities, with all our strengths and struggles, mistakes and miracles, there is simply no other way to be except in love. I’m asking you to love the people with mismatched surfaces and centers. With enough love, their surfaces will become clear and we will all reap the gifts of their deep, true visibility.  

I pay attention and look for the cracks in the armor, and find many beautiful, suffering people this way. People who are setting themselves free, for whom the water now runs clear.  

When I was sixteen, I needed someone to understand me when I had no words to be understood. Now, I sow the seeds of vulnerability and watch as they bloomed into a small garden of precious, lovely people around me. These people let me see deep into their centers and look straight into mine. We belong to each other. Just as before, I never know the moment where we become each other’s keeper, but we know it as a universal truth. It’s soul-shivering business, being a part of someone in this way. It’s a mystery and a miracle, how we have found each other. I believe it is because we had the courage to let ourselves be seen by the other. Our emotional nakedness is so intimate.

Belonging to and with each other is the best and most beautiful part of me. And to my sweet-hearted transparent people, I need you to know: I love seeing you in all you are. Thank you for opening your inner life to me. You are such a gift. You make me to feel deeper than I knew possible. Your truest, deepest self leaks into the world because you deserve to be known fully. You push me, hard. You orient me upwards. I am more of myself because you have shown me who you are.

I hope we belong to each other forever.