Introspection

Fact (according to Cissy): Ninety percent of people who say they will do something won't follow through. Most of them don't mean to let you down or fail you when you need them most. Humanity is just fickle. Hence why, if you do everything you say you will do and everything everyone asks you to do, you will rise above 90% of the competition.

I want to be a part of that ten percent. I want to literally do everything that is not morally wrong or self-detrimental that people need me to do. Even if it's mildly inconvenient, I want to do what people ask me to do. I want to do what I say I will do. If it's as simple as remembering to turn a light off when I'm done in a room or as difficult as walking halfway across town so that you don't have to walk alone. Or watch their child for a day so that they can just get some rest. I don't want to be unreliable. I want to be the solid foundation that holds people up.

The other day someone told me I was a self-contradiction a lot. They said I had so many sides to me that they couldn't even tell which one was the real me. When I responded that all of them are the real me, they told me that a lot of it contradicted itself. For me, most things are situational. Whether I'm the person who can laugh and joke about anything, talk objectively and intellectually about any subject or am hurting and struggling with feelings. Whether I am angry or happy, aloof or warm, quiet or loud, uninterested or passionate, even about the same subject, it is still me. Very seldom do I show any side of myself that is fake.

But if that person is reading this, I do want to say that after some introspection, I realized that the side of me you saw the day that you were so concerned when we had this conversation was a different person. I was trying too hard to get someone else's attention without jeopardizing giving myself away. I forget sometimes that people actually like me for me, so that the sides that I typically hide from others and the sides that I typically show from others kind of reversed themselves that day. My gravitation probably would have remained the same, but it probably would have manifested itself in a different manner. I'm just afraid of being too clingy and driving people away. And yet, that seems to be exactly what I'm doing anyway. Frankly, I hate the side of me that I showed that day probably more than anyone else ever could. Because I know exactly what it is.

My request is this: Pray that I may learn, not only how to determine and control outwardly what it is that I'm feeling, but that I may also learn how to relax and be less afraid to show whatever is the "real" me in cases such as these. My mind is unable to rest at ease right now, and ever since we had this discussion, it has plagued my thoughts, while I've tried to determine what my real issue is. Because most of the time, with me, what you see is what you get. How I show myself to be is how I generally am. Sure, sometimes I pretend to be happier than I am or more excited about something than I really am, but I don't manifest it any differently than I really would.

I don't know. I feel like I'm trying to understand something that goes much deeper than what within my range of comprehension. I need to stop thinking.

M. Cecelia Swick