So far in my life, I feel as though I have accomplished a lot. I have graduated from high school and finished my first year of college and am planning to go back for round two and start my sophomore year in the fall, taking on a leadership position. One thing I have not accomplished though is being vulnerable."Vulnerability" has been described as "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally" but it is so much more than that.

It has taken me over 18 years to truly understand what being vulnerable meant and I still don't have it perfectly figured out. I do know this though, I didn't really start to understand it until I was well into my second semester of college. Coming back from Christmas break and getting asked the typical question of "how was your break" and replying with the basic "good" was way easier than telling the truth and being vulnerable and that is when it all hit me. Lying is not a vulnerability. Lying is what you do when you are scared of getting shut down or ignored by the people who love you the most.

Until I realized that I could trust my boyfriend with anything, I was anything but vulnerable. I would dance around topics of conversation and tread lightly with the information I gave out, never giving my full story. I assumed that if I told anyone the whole truth about me they wouldn't want to stick around for what comes next. After putting up walls for so long I realized that I absolutely could not build a firm relationship without vulnerability.

A relationship as it goes on becomes a two-way street. You put information out in the open and hope with all your heart that it doesn't change the way the other person thinks or feels about you. In return, you look for the person you deeply care about to do the same and trust you with their deepest concerns. Until I was openly honest with my boyfriend about my entire life, including my history, I wasn't vulnerable. The best part about all of it is that he accepted me with open arms. No matter what I threw or continue to throw at him he is always eager to hear what I have to say and help me through it. He wants to know what upset me or bothered me or made me happy no matter how little it was. He is the reason that I'm not scared to be vulnerable.

To me, being vulnerable means continuing on with being honest, and I no longer see it as a bad thing. If something happens to me and I feel an intense emotion because of it, what is stopping me from telling my significant other about it? Sure we can disagree about it and how I felt about it but that counts as being vulnerable. Not being met with the desired response is being vulnerable. Giving full opinions, full stories, full details, that is a vulnerability. At the end of the day, the person that you love will love you even more because they know that you are putting your full self forward fearlessly and giving them all you have to make the relationship one that will last.