A friend sent me this picture not so long ago.
And, over the last several weeks, I’ve circled round it, always coming back and reading – and re-reading it.
There is truth in this little square of words – if only I can dig it out of myself, somehow.
I ask myself the question, over and over:
Just what IS it, that lies at the center of my being? I can feel the answers there, like a small, golden orb, glowing with a steady light, and yet… I’m afraid to pull back the layers of protection, to knock down the walls of self-doubt and fear that I’ve put up over the years.
Just what am I afraid of?
Well, the same things that everyone’s afraid of, I guess.
Rejection.
Because if I pull back all the layers, and finally discover who I really am, and start actually being that person, then if someone rejects me… they’re rejecting the real me. Not a stunt-double, not a stand-in, not a construct or a mask that I’ve projected for their approval. I can’t hide anymore, nor can I blow it off as “Oh, they don’t know the real me, or they’d love me.”
I have to be honest, though, and say that, for the most part, I am the real me, here. Even under an assumed name, I am more “Me” here, than I am in most of my everyday life. It’s easier to show the raw emotions, the darker, scarier stuff, when you have the anonymity of the internet to hide behind.
And some of you that read this, know me in real life. Which… kind of causes me to be hesitant when we speak, to say the same things out loud, that I say here. It’s like there really are 2 completely separate personalities… one is Brea, and lives here, in the computer… one is the legal-name me, and lives out in the mundane world.
So, for those of you that know me, especially those that I see day-to-day, please know, that when I start to whisper, or my eyes slide to the side, hesitant, it’s not because I don’t want to talk… it’s that it’s harder, face-to-face, to be that raw, that vulnerable. Because I fear the rejection.
One of my blogging friends… you know who you are… said that it’s so much harder to say things in person, that he was telling his blog-readers things that he had trouble telling his family. And it’s true. Just that touch of anonymity… makes it easier. A little distance, a tiny wall of protection, and you can fool yourself into believing that you’re just “writing in a journal on the computer”.
I’ve been using a phrase a lot lately… That I’ve always been a kind of “rip-the-bandaid-off-all-at-once” kind of girl. I don’t like limbo, I don’t like prolonging the agony or the anxiety, any longer than I have to. I like to do things in a certain order.
1. Do my research on any given subject – whether it’s choosing a hair style, choosing paint to go on a wall, choosing which e-cigarette I’m going to use to quit smoking, or choosing to get a divorce – I research. I haunt the web, reading sites, checking out what other people think about any given thing, and asking people at work, and friends, what they think of a thing. I try really hard not to walk into things blindly. I might make a wrong decision in the end, but, it’s still my decision, so… lesson learned.
2. I make a decision – one way or the other. And once the decision is made… there really isn’t much going back. I have a very stubborn streak. Ask around, everyone who knows me, even the slightest, knows about my stubborn tendencies. It’s genetic – take my word for it.
3. I act… and I want results. I hate limbo, even with the game of limbo, I always ended up on my butt, because I was in too much of a rush. I hate waiting. I want it over, and behind me.
Right now, my life consists of this irritating limbo- waiting- between one place and another, between one life and another. And I hate it. I really, really do. I know that there is a certain order to things, and that I have to wait for them to occur in that order… but I still hate it.
I don’t care right now, if the wound bleeds… I’ll wash it off. After a certain time, wounds need the oxygen to heal, just as much as they needed the bandage before.
So, at the center of my being… who am I? And what do I want? Hang on, and we’ll find out.
Brea's Air 