to reveal/to conceal
This weekend is a study in Michigan fall, from sunny t-shirt weather, planting a Mum in the front yard, to chilly and damp, nestling into my sweater and complicated system of coats. I am determined not to have a winter like last so am intentionally gaining weight, in the hope that it will keep me warm.
I filled an entire composition book on my first essay. Thumbing back through it, I find myself reckless, sacrificing many sentences, some floral, winding, convoluted, others just too close. Before I wrote this essay I felt safe, brick by brick built a fort, the entrance blocked by a persona that exhausted me too much to keep up. I am not my essay. But I am also not always brave, certainly not without fear.
I am reading a lot, trying to understand a context and history that is big and old, began before I could even read. It's not that I don't like theory. I'm cautious, afraid that I will start to talk like that, in a way that the people I love the most won't understand. I'd like to learn to move within and between all of these worlds, to make theory out of the everyday, to take myself seriously enough to be oblivious when others don't.
Sometimes I am very serious.
I feel lonely, like I can't relate or am having a hard time getting to know people. I can be hard to know. My hair dresser asks me, "You going out tonight?" and I just laugh, say, "Nah. I'm more of a stay home and read sort of girl." I have always been mostly introverted but hungry for connection. I've met a few people I'm interested in getting to know. But how do I get to know someone without revealing too much? How can they ever know me if I conceal everything?
I filled an entire composition book on my first essay. Thumbing back through it, I find myself reckless, sacrificing many sentences, some floral, winding, convoluted, others just too close. Before I wrote this essay I felt safe, brick by brick built a fort, the entrance blocked by a persona that exhausted me too much to keep up. I am not my essay. But I am also not always brave, certainly not without fear.
I am reading a lot, trying to understand a context and history that is big and old, began before I could even read. It's not that I don't like theory. I'm cautious, afraid that I will start to talk like that, in a way that the people I love the most won't understand. I'd like to learn to move within and between all of these worlds, to make theory out of the everyday, to take myself seriously enough to be oblivious when others don't.
Sometimes I am very serious.
I feel lonely, like I can't relate or am having a hard time getting to know people. I can be hard to know. My hair dresser asks me, "You going out tonight?" and I just laugh, say, "Nah. I'm more of a stay home and read sort of girl." I have always been mostly introverted but hungry for connection. I've met a few people I'm interested in getting to know. But how do I get to know someone without revealing too much? How can they ever know me if I conceal everything?