Words

You know, for a person that loves words so much that I used to read the dictionary as a child, I’m not very talented at using them to express My own emotions. One of the reasons is my passive aggressive nature. One being that I’m a people-pleaser and am constantly more concerned about others feelings. But my main reason is fear. I’m not an unintelligent person. I graduated college with honors and  only half applied myself my senior year, because of reasons I will happily blab about in another blog post somewhere in the future. I love to read, and I love to learn. My fear comes more from rejection. We’re all afraid of that but after a while guarding yourself becomes second nature. For me, being rejected because of a physical attribute  is way more bearable than being rejected for having a certain opinion.

   I can handle not being tall enough, or small enough, or not having pretty eyes the color of an angry sea. If I’m rejected because of those facts, then I don’t want to be wanted by you anyways. You’re small-minded if you’re going to confine me to those requirements. But rejection of my opinion or my emotions and feelings, my thoughts, my ideas, That hurts much more. Those are things I can change, to an extent,  but would I still be me if I just flip-flop to please you? No. I’d just be a carbon copy. And I’m not talking about major things like racism or how you like your coffee.  I mean opinions like your favorite color, or your favorite sweater, or most hated poet of all time.
        I’ve always craved a partner whose thought process differs from mine. Someone that views the world a bit differently than I do, but still enjoys a lot of the same things. I imagine it’d be like taking the same photograph with different lenses. The composition is exact but the focus varies. You could learn so much and see so many different things all in the same little 8x10 box. 

      But showing someone my photograph, and having them turn away in disgust or just not caring enough to truly look at it, has always been a level of vulnerability that makes me extremely fragile. I’ve been broken before, and having put myself back together, well it’s not a pretty process. And not one I want to keep repeating. I learned how to show only one or two shots of my portfolio instead of the whole book. I learned how to hide enough of myself that I could raise curiosity but never fulfill it. Or at least, make sure I didn’t want to show more. But then I’d meet someone and something would click and I’d want to show them all of me and in my excitement show too much too fast. I’m extremely guarded until I trust you. But once the trust is established I’m all in immediately. I’ll happily show you every corner of my art gallery. Too much too fast. I'm trying to learn balance and not be so all or nothing but so far...I'm all or nothing.