Let Me In, Let Me In, or I’ll Huff and I’ll Puff and I’ll Blow Your House In

“Wild Young Hearts” – Noisettes

Using straw, sticks and bricks to build barriers to keep out the “Big Bad Wolf” is the aim of the “Little Pigs”. However, I must pose this question: Why are the Little Pigs so scared of the Big Bad Wolf? What if he’s not even that big? What if he’s not that bad? What if he’s not really a wolf? I mean, come on, he could just be wearing a costume to hide the fact that he’s actually a “Little Good Piggy”. Alright, so the original story does involve some little piggies being eaten, but let’s say in theory that the first two pigs escape and make it to the third pig’s house and the wolf is actually a pig. He just wants to hang out and have fun too. He just doesn’t have the social manners and grace required to do it the same way the other three pigs do. So now he feels the need to hide his true self behind a wolf costume because he’s hurt that he can’t be part of the other’s inner circle.

We all do this. We all build barriers to keep people out. Some have stronger, sturdier, and stable barriers; And some have flimsy, weak, and fragile ones. But what are we so afraid of? Perhaps one answer to this may be that we don’t want to give another person the opportunity to hurt us. To tear our walls down and make us vulnerable. We are a distrustful lot and if we are not distrustful, then we must be naive, gullible, young, foolish or inexperienced. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It just means we have the latter type of barriers. It isn’t until someone’s actions or words hurt you that you then slowly start to add more things to the barrier. More straw, more sticks, more bricks, more costumes. We start to hide a bit more of our true selves every time we do this.

As the saying goes, “You fool me once, shame on you. You fool me twice, shame on me.” Myself, I’ve been fooled more than once or twice but I continue to have weak, flimsy barriers because I truly believe that not everyone is perfect. We all go through heartache, pain, hurt, loneliness, etc. etc. etc., so how can one imperfect person pass judgement on another imperfect person? Sometimes when those feelings are so strong and intense, my first instinctive reaction is to start building. I’m learning to control the neurotic barrier building because for myself, when I look at the bigger picture of a situation…it can always be worse. You can feel ten times more pain, ten times more loneliness and ten times more heartache. So take hold of those feelings. Remember what they feel like. It makes us human and allows us to reflect and remember fond moments, be it palatable ones or undesirable ones.

Most people commonly react by building these walls. When you do this, you are filtering out the amazing experiences and people you COULD be meeting. The people who can be inspiring to you, the people that you can fall in love with, the people who will fall in love with you, the people who can help you find yourself, the people who can heal your hurt, or the people who could make the loneliness go away. If we build our walls so strong, so high, and so sturdy that no one can get in, how are we to have the opportunity to find all those amazing people and have all those amazing moments? Keep your heart open, keep your barriers light and free because then you can be expansive and receptive to whatever comes your way. When that happens, even the bad things have a way of fading away into a pleasant memory.