It took only a few seconds for my barriers to break

The hour is late and I should be on my way to work in about seven hours. I still feel I need to put down my thoughts right now instead of just going to bed. I just came home after experiencing something that touched my soul deeply.

Only 15 minutes ago I stood on the sidewalk in the first storm of this fall, talking to a person that I really don't know that well. Yes, it's a person I've seen during a couple of years, but never actually spoken to. I mean really spoken to. Now I did.

It was a rare moment. Two people, one of them asking very clear questions. It took only a few seconds for my barriers to break. I opened myself to a person that straight on asked for it. At first I tried to avoid it. Why, I now ask myself afterwards. Why should I not open up to a soul that clearly is pure, to a heart that clearly is filled with love? I am now glad I eventually did. And what I got in return was a full view of this soul. Beautiful, fragile. I felt touched. Touched for having had the opportunity to be stopped, to be taken to the side. I would have walked past this otherwise. It makes me think - maybe there are a lot of things I have walked past without ever knowing.

See, I have a way of being cheerful and lively. It is who I am, but now I think it might keep some people away from me. Back to the point. I tonight saw a heart that was full of honest love and pain. How lucky am I to get to share this, I thought. That another person will take the time to break my barriers of joyfulness just to be able to open up to me. I feel blessed. I saw a soul that was much in the same place I was in a couple of years ago. Agonized by the mess that we call life, not sure which way to go, how to follow the right path. I finally saw the moment I have so clearly been approaching. My mouth opened and all the realizations I've had, all the thoughts that have been shaped, all the truths that I have found in my own heart - they all came out. It was like a waterfall, it couldn't be stopped. In the end, I felt like crying. My feelings were so close to the skin that just a touch would have broken my last barrier down.

Yes, it was true what I got told - I was talking to myself. All those words of wisdom were pointed at myself. I had just been waiting for the right person to come by, one that would ask for them. And maybe, hopefully, I had an effect on this person as well. Maybe I added something, healed something, or maybe opened up some path.

Now. What is left? Emptiness, because I won't need those words anymore, yet a newfound strength that I knew was in me, but that I didn't know how to release.
I'm not sure who to thank for tonight. But I sure am thankful for being pulled to the side.

We all have people in our lives that are there for a reason. Sometimes they are not that apparent. Open your eyes and look around. It might be the next person that looks into your eyes.