walls

Rome was not built in a day. In fact, it was built in many days that transcended different weather, soldiers, thoughts, plans, theories and more.

At the end of the building process there was success. There was strength and stability.

Strong walls perhaps.

I have been thinking about the concept of walls a lot.

Walls that make up my childhood bedroom, walls that shape my Boston apartment, walls of homes my friends are moving out of that knew me all too well at one point, and walls around me I have built.

The walls that I am proud of that keep me firm and structured, walls I am not proud of that don't let me lean into relationships that have potential.

Walls up for friends that do not serve me and walls down for those that do.

I feel that I carry the strength of walls often, and when they are serving me well it feels very healing, and when they are not it feels dumb_.

Are all these walls up really helpful? Or do they hurt me?

I can't help to then think back to my close and personal friend, Taylor Swift. As you all must know by now, I find Taylor Swift to be the voice of the soundtrack of my inner thoughts.

Specifically, she has certain songs that speak to me on a deeper level than most.

One of these songs is without a doubt "The Prophecy" which is a song about the fear of never finding someone to love you the right way.

"The Prophecy" tells the story of Taylor praying that her fate may not be sealed. That after all these years she really can still find the one. She can change the prophecy, or someone will come along one day to do so for her.

A line in the prophecy goes "but even statues crumble if they're made to wait..." which brings me back to the concept of walls.

The idea that she (and us) are statues in our own lives - strong, patient, present, stable. And although we are a strong figure with redeeming traits we will slowly break as time goes on without the feeling of love that is so desired.

But, I started to really reflect on this in another sense. Here, Taylor thinks that statues crumbling is a bad thing but I thought of it as a great thing.

I feel that a statue I worked so hard to build and protect and stabilize would mean even more to me when one day it can be broken down.

That a crumbling statue is just another version of breaking down the walls I have spent years building. And how freeing it may be to release myself from the shackles of a system I put in place as protection.

How nice would it feel to not have or need protection or walls or the strongest statues because you can share in pain, joys, the mediocre days, championship wins, birthdays, grocery trips, and recipes with a person you love.

The mundane or the everything or the bad - to just let it all go.

To just let it happen.

To break down walls, to allow people to come in and crumble the statues we built (with caution), and to feel the safety with someone else so strongly that you no longer need the stability and power that walls and statues produce.

Again, this does not happen quickly. As they (or even I ) say, Rome was not built in a day and vulnerability takes time.

It was built in many days that transcended different weather, soldiers, thoughts, plans, theories and more.

This may happen with many different friends, boys, relationships that happened - and ones that didn't but oddly hurt more than ones that did.

I have made a promise to myself this year and in the future. Life is too short to not let anyone in. My walls are so strong it makes it impossible for anyone to get close, and I am not letting that control my prophecy any further.

Walls are meant to protect the person who built them, but I am not entirely confident that the strength of my walls does me favors anymore.

Maybe the idea is to not just remove the walls entirely and live without them, but to build windows inside of them.

Truthfully love should not make someone tear everything down, but it allows for them to look inside at the beauty of what you've built.

This will take time, practice, the right people, and the right path of the prophecy.

Hoping the walls come down and the prophecy changes,

Jane