And that will surprise none of you. I am forever saying too much and too much of the wrong thing.
It has been a long stretch now. This will be a post that is wordy and long and confusing and crystal clear. It will matter and not count all in one. In the end I will chalk it up to the flavor of my life being bittersweet and all things ebb and flow in seasons. It's the reality grasp that something can be both good and bad all at once. And that that's perfectly ok.
I am who I am. Simple and dull.
I think I am easy to understand and that I am who I am for the most part in all areas of my life, here in my writing included, although I realize we never fully see ourselves and I have listened over the years to the many people who tell me they've never had a clearer picture of me than when they read my writing. Perhaps, then, the written word, in all it's limitations and failings and complexities, is really where you get the best picture of the whole me. I don't know.
My written words are what I would say if given the chance without all of the rest of the world and life and people pressing in on me. What I write is how I hear myself inside my own head and heart. Any of my words, put down anywhere are the words that I hear and see myself speaking and believing and being deep in my imagination, but I suspect it's more imagination than reality.
Anyway, back to who I am in my everyday "real" life. That's a line that blurs further and further for the whole world as technology moves faster and faster, but you knew that.
In my everyday real life, I am a sort of emotional go to person. This will sound like complaint or whine, but it is not either. I could choose not to be this person, but in a sick way, I almost have to have a certain amount of this in my life. I like to think most of us have a little bit of this. We all need to be needed.
It just seems, and remember, this is my own perception, my own opinion and my own life I'm talking about here, not yours, so go ahead and put your defenses away. I sort of collect people who need me to be their emotional go to person in the more extreme ways.
I'm not picking out any one of you. There are many, many people who come to me when their lives are exploding or the pain is beyond a level they can cope with. I am the person that gets the rant calls and the tears. I am the person that pours hours and hours and days and months into conversations about the same things, seeing no changes and yet I keep listening and advising when you ask it of me.
And here's the point I've been working my way into. There are a lot of you. Really kind of a lot. It's not bad and I wouldn't trade a single one of you because I truly love each of you in your own way. I do. In a way, I need your drama, I need your need of me because it fills something in me.
But.
Come on, you knew it was coming. There's always a but, except this time I think it's me. I am the butt.
For about 6 months now, maybe longer, I've been doing a poor job of all this being the go to person. And you've all been telling me so. And believe it or not, I have been listening and I have heard you.
I've heard every F-you and every, "I already knew that". I've seen you cry and heard it when you've shut down. I've seen with my own eyes the damage I do when I open up my mouth and tell you what you've told me you wanted to hear, those things that you try so hard to tell me are the reasons you value my friendship. Sure, there is value in being told truth or reality, there is value in being told the hard things or the things we already knew about our selves. I heard you tell me I'm over the line, I've thought too much of myself or given myself a little too much validity in terms of just knowing something just because I know, because I can read a person or whatever I like to call it.
I heard you. Every one of you. I heard.
I get it. I do.
This doesn't change me or make me stop being me. It doesn't make me not your emotional go to person. This doesn't mean say something in the comments or in my inbox or however you want to privately get to me to say, but...but...
No.
I'll still be here. You'll still come to me. I'll still be me. I'll listen as best I can, which we all know isn't well. And I'll still talk and give bad advice, cause that's who I am at my core.
What I will try to change though, is the ratio and the strength.
I will try to be more of a listener. I will try to be much more slow to speak. I will try to say what I feel like I'm called to say to you in a kinder, less forceful way. I will try to wait on my gut feel to see if things really go the way I believe they will go. I will try to find a filter for my face.
And why am I motivated to try to modify this about myself?
Because I've seen and heard how it's all working. I talk and your pain is doubled. I talk and give ideas and action plans that you don't want and won't take and will argue against and make excuses why you can't and in the end I will be frustrated and think then why did you ask me? I see where what I say to you is just duplicate advice and the person who should be telling you all those things already is and I'm just empty competitve noise in the background. I need to get off my self-importance and let other people be things in your lives.
There are a dozen of you who will read this and see yourselves and our relationships and others of you who will feel like you slipped into a bad episode of some drug induced tv show. It doesn't matter.
I often write just to talk to myself and sort things out. Even though you all tell me you gain clarity and understand me or know me better by reading here, on this one, you'll still only have partial understanding and clarity. Why? Because all I have in this for myself is partial clarity.
