| Sunday, May 27, 2007 |
| Being real |
 "I am afraid to tell you who I am, because, if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it's all that I have."
Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?, John Powell I think for a number of years this was the enduring image my family and people I knew had of me. Grumpy. Prone to sulking and skulking off, away from people. Actually, I still do that now, to some extent: if I'm feeling low or hurting I'll often hide out somewhere. Tables are good places to hide under!
But isn't that quote so true? How many masks do we wear? How many personalities do we carry around inside us (and I don't mean schizophrenia)? How many 'us's' are there that we pull out for certain occasions, certain people, certain places? I know we all have different facets of our personality for friends, family, colleagues; for serious business meetings, for a friend's birthday bash. But sometimes we may feel we're a whole different person.
I made a promise to myself a few years ago that I would try to be me to everyone. That's hard! It hurts being that vulnerable, sometimes. When you've spent years growing up being rejected purely for being you (can't kids be cruel to one another?), 5, 10, 15 years later it still echoes inside, still makes you shaky and uncertain when meeting new people, still makes you wonder 'why on earth would they want to be my friend?' Even when 20, 30 people turn up to your birthday party, you might still go home wondering why they came.
Because even though you're crying out with your whole being, "If you knew me yesterday, please do not think that it is the same person that you are meeting today", deep inside you don't necessarily believe it. You may still think that the person you were when you were 7 (as the picture above shows) is the person who still are now.
And that makes it hard to ask for friendship. Because ultimately developing friendship is a risky business - it means asking: "Do you want to come for coffee/a drink/watch a film with me?" And they might just say no. And each 'no' crushes you that little bit smaller, if you let it.
But my point was supposed to be about being real. About being us the real us's. Who is the real me? I'm not entirely sure, but it's pretty much who you see, whether I be happy or sad, introverted or extroverted, busy or relaxing, brave or afraid, I am who I am. And that's all that I can be. |
posted by Calia77 @ 8:24 pm  |
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