the greatest irony was that it took me being myself before people loved me. i know that’s all they shoved down my throat for years: that if i was just me, just all of myself, unapologetically - somehow, people would feel that. but the thing was: i didn’t want to be myself. i hated every inch of who i knew i was, the person that itched under the surface of a veneer i’d carefully crafted. the real me was meaner, more sarcastic, less tolerant, less patient, was selfish and ugly and emotional. i knew that it meant no one could love me for being me.
it took being so broken that i didn’t care how people saw me before i acted the way i’d wanted to for years. i spoke up in class. i said the comeback that was on my tongue. i didn’t let others walk over me. i stood up. it was a strange experience, watching people react to that. my sharp words were agreed with, laughed about, seconded. the impatience with chaos was understood as leadership. the selfishness was not as bad as i thought it was, but rather just occasionally providing for myself first.
it is very strange and backwards and half-awful that what i was running from for so long was what it took to make me whole. that being genuine also gave me back the good things again: i was funny and quick and talented. and it gave me honesty. it gave me people being calm around me. in my lack of fear, in the fact i didn’t mind being the first to be wrong, to be a mess, to be who i was (and terribly unperfect) - people relaxed their own masks around me. so many were wearing such thick ones, such well-polished versions of who they needed to be.
and underneath was the same things that i had been hiding. bravery. wit. cunning. kindness. vulnerability.
it is amazing who people are when they are not trying. it is amazing how hard not trying really is. it is amazing how long it took me before i was okay with it. sometimes i still do, even though i sort of resent it. there are many bad things about me still. but there are many better qualities that i forgot to admit to.
it is strange that for so long i tried to be perfect when people aren’t looking for perfection at all. they are looking for someone who is like them, and flawed.
