Bubbles and balloons
Thoughts on pain, discomfort and vulnerability
I drew this years ago, and have been thinking about it while watching Severance.
And I’ve been thinking about balloons and bubbles this week.
I’ve always liked the visual of someone inside something, like a glass box or a balloon or a ball. The idea of comfort, of safety.
There’s something about the balloon visual that I think represents something very human to me. The idea of navigating the world from inside a balloon seems freeing, because a balloon is light and can reach the sky. It can feel comfortable, it can feel safe.
But as free as you may feel, you aren’t feeling the sun on your skin. You aren’t breathing new air, you aren’t skin to skin with someone else. To exist in a bubble may keep you from harm, but bubbles eventually pop. The glass box eventually breaks.
I recently finished the latest season of Severance. There’s a lot to it, but at its core, it’s a show about pain. Our desire not to feel it, our desire to remove it from being human, to see how happier and more powerful we’d be. Turns out we can’t be human without pain. The balloon eventually pops.
In the Wicked musical, Elphaba tells Glinda, “Well, we can't all come and go by bubble.” Are bubbles for the privileged? What is the privilege?
Kristen Chenoweth, who played the first Glinda on Broadway, wrote in her book A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages: “But there's the beauty of life beyond the bubble. It's possible for someone to see your wicked bits and still love you."
To step out of the bubble is to take a risk and to be at risk. To step out of the bubble is to be vulnerable.
I had always felt Willy Wonka was a character who feared vulnerability, and yet longed to feel honestly, as children do.
I am fascinated by fear and our feelings of discomfort. Fear can lead a lot of who we are and how we exist with ourselves and others, if we let it. I recognize I’ve let it lead me many times in my life.
Many who follow me online and maybe have for years, know me for my honest words and illustrations. Yet, I really struggle with vulnerability. I struggle with being fully seen and sitting in the discomfort of it. Something I’ve been reflecting on this week. My honest writing and illustrations are my bubble, in a way. I can make honest art, so I must be good at being vulnerable, right?
I think fear teaches me a lot about myself and about others. In a way, the balloon is a mirror, a representation of fear. I think pain and fear are much alike. Even C.S. Lewis said grief and fear were the same feeling.
Being human is uncomfortable, and our fears remind us of just that: we are human.
As Kristen said, the beauty of life lies beyond the bubble.
As I grow and continue to learn to be human, I long more and more to pop the balloon. I don’t find joy in the balloon, and rather find it in the discomfort of feeling and being open and curious. I find joy more and more in taking risks to be seen. The risk of feeling pain is scary, but what is being human without it? I truly long to be as fully human as I can be.