What Lies Beneath
“I would have never guessed,” he said.
Simple enough comment. You know. Sometimes, it really pleases me. You know? I tend to have that effect on people.
I wear a pretty thick façade. I mean, I HAVE to, just to survive. Just to keep my sanity. Could you just imagine?? Teenage me would be appalled. Well, Teenage Me, six years as an atheist libertarian working at a Christian based place of business in the Bible Belt was enough to teach me the value of shutting the fuck up, biting my tongue, and sometimes just outright lying.
It’s not just that, you know. It’s also professionalism. It’s also, um, being a mother. There is this scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlett and Rhett are out walking in the neighborhood, showing off their new baby girl, Bonnie. Scarlett is kind of a loud mouth tramp, but Rhett insists they make an effort to clean up their reputation for Bonnie’s sake. I think of that scene a LOT, when I’m in my own neighborhood. Can’t afford to give the wrong impression. If you are a pariah, your child is a pariah.
But it felt good to let that façade crack a little.
And I do it from time to time.
But even then, the surface is barely scratched.
The things in my past that remain unresolved remain that way because I do not even know how to fit them into my personal narrative. I can be exhausting. Overwhelming. And some people just drink me in. But my perception of my influence over people is often out of sync with reality? The humble thing to do is to underestimate. The safe thing to do would be to overestimate.
Simple enough comment. You know. Sometimes, it really pleases me. You know? I tend to have that effect on people.
I wear a pretty thick façade. I mean, I HAVE to, just to survive. Just to keep my sanity. Could you just imagine?? Teenage me would be appalled. Well, Teenage Me, six years as an atheist libertarian working at a Christian based place of business in the Bible Belt was enough to teach me the value of shutting the fuck up, biting my tongue, and sometimes just outright lying.
It’s not just that, you know. It’s also professionalism. It’s also, um, being a mother. There is this scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlett and Rhett are out walking in the neighborhood, showing off their new baby girl, Bonnie. Scarlett is kind of a loud mouth tramp, but Rhett insists they make an effort to clean up their reputation for Bonnie’s sake. I think of that scene a LOT, when I’m in my own neighborhood. Can’t afford to give the wrong impression. If you are a pariah, your child is a pariah.
But it felt good to let that façade crack a little.
And I do it from time to time.
But even then, the surface is barely scratched.
The things in my past that remain unresolved remain that way because I do not even know how to fit them into my personal narrative. I can be exhausting. Overwhelming. And some people just drink me in. But my perception of my influence over people is often out of sync with reality? The humble thing to do is to underestimate. The safe thing to do would be to overestimate.