Vulnerability as Cake

I went to a seminar called the Human Connection Initiative and there we were told about a bullseye circle that encompassed us. In the middle was all of us, the vulnerable fundamentals of who we are. Some people we let into that circle, and some we kept out. Outside that smaller circle was a little larger one that encompassed our friends, the people we hung out with a lot, but who we weren’t fully vulnerable with. Outside the friend’s circle were our acquaintances, the people we saw every so often, and only really had surface-level conversations with.

But recently I’ve come to the conclusion that the part of all of us we share with the world is in fact a circle, but not a bullseye. Instead, it is a single homemade cake. And every piece of me I decide to cut is how much of me I share with the world. I could choose to cut even small pieces, sharing personal stories and opinions like breadcrumbs. Or I could start out cutting even small pieces, giving those to my acquaintances, the people I don’t know as well, saving the larger pieces for my family members, my friends, because I know them after all, they can handle a bigger slice. Or I could just start cutting reasonable pieces, pieces of myself that I know will be enough to satisfy. I could hand over slices that people don’t expect, a vulnerability that seems unnatural and prone to hurt. This type of cake sharing is one I’ve only seen and never experienced because I imagine after a few people have left half-eaten slices on their plates it’s much harder to handle the knife again.

I am the middle scenario. The type of person who starts off giving small even pieces, but when encountered with a person I know well, has let my knife slip, until I have given away a bigger piece than I ever really expected. I think most people are this way most of the time. Sometimes we revert back to small even pieces, but it’s much harder to maintain. And sometimes, at dangerously happy points in our lives, we share huge pieces, willing those who won’t finish our slices to leave, at least we know some who will.

But the problem with this metaphor comes because vulnerability, the all-encompassing us, is not limited like a single homemade cake. Instead, this single homemade cake is magical in that for every cake slice you give away, a new one comes to replace it. And when your magical cake slice has not replenished, you hope that you get one back from someone else, a different flavor than yours, but equally valuable. A weird kind of potluck. Your cake slices left don’t quite fit around the new ones you’ve gained, but most of the time it doesn’t matter. The cake slices are usually similar enough in size that they can fit next to each other perfectly well.

Other problems come when the one you give away is bigger than the one you get back, but that’s just part of life sometimes. Sometimes the people you give small even slices to give you a bigger piece in return that you are not ready for, but cake is cake, and all cake is delicious. So don’t feel bad if your cake is giving out small even slices for a long time. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes it takes getting a slightly bigger slice for your knife to slip and reveal the bigger piece you knew you wanted to give.