Guess what, blog? We've moved. I only cried once, after leaving my bestie's house after a night of mad partying (in my life, mad partying = Oggi's pizza and Mimi's desert in the same night. Woo hoo!). I try to tell myself that the misery of crying alone (while driving, I might add) is so reserved and stiff upper lip and British of me, but, unfortunately, stiff upper lip isn't really such a huge thing in the UK anymore. Now it's just pathetic.
(Parentheses happy tonight are we Kelsey?)I'm very tired, but who isn't in this whiny world?
May I say,
I DON'T CARE THAT NO ONE READS THIS BLOG. REALLY, I DON'T. IN FACT I FIND IT SOMEWHAT FREEING.
Have I said that before?
It's true though. And tonight it struck me that besides being true it's also sad. Why do I feel like I'm actually being myself only when no one is watching? Did that sentence make one iota of sense? I hope so, because I really want to figure this out.
Being an individual in private doesn't make much sense, does it?
Okay, let's talk about ME for a minute. Because I never write completely narcissistic posts on this blog, ever. (On a side note, I wonder how many people actually know where the word "narcissistic" comes from. I wonder also if I think I'm much cleverer than I actually am for knowing. Ah, well. Take any victories you imagine you have, Kels.)
I've always had an eager to please personality, and, in general, I've very few complaints about being so. I avoid arguments with surprising ease. I can manage grouchy people. The idea of waitressing doesn't appall me. It's mostly good.
The main problem though, is when "eager to please" becomes "eager to repress any symptoms of personality or original thought in some misguided and largely unconscious attempt to make people like you". And, unfortunately, for me it frequently does. I don't know why. It's not as if I think my opinion about this or taste for that is less legitimate than that of the person I'm talking to (unless, um, it is). And I do have opinions. I do!
Here's my theory: I am, at heart, a self-conscious and rather shy person. When I'm chatting with people outside a small group (family and besties), I'm in a continual fluster. I don't think when I'm talking, I just bleat out whatever I can manage. I figure that I just don't think about what I'm saying or what I'm agreeing with, I'm just hoping to get through a conversation without making an absolute fool of myself.
And now, after much wandering, I believe we have finally come to the heart of the matter.
I care too much. I worry about what people think to a degree bordering on paranoia.
So, blah. I suppose the next thing to do is figure out how to not-care quite so much. If I ever want to quit feeling like the best friend and become the leading lady of my own life (see? the movies are good for you) I will have to exert myself. Not be pushy or domineering or obnoxious - just say what I actually think. be me. And heck, myself may very well be pushy, domineering and obnoxious. I have no idea. Which is sort of sad, isn't it blog? Somebody please call the waaaaambulance.
About three hours later, and entirely unrelated:
Since we're being entirely self-centered this evening, I have another question to ask. Can a person have too low an opinion of himself? Or, in this case, herself? I've read in C.S. Lewis somewhere (oo, sudden twinge at the thought of how vastly inferior my writing is to his) that it's silly for a man who knows he has built the best cathedral in the world to try to tell others and himself that it's really quite ordinary and not at all special. He ought to be able to take pride in his achievement without becoming a proud person. Now, I can think of plenty of things I can't do and not many I can, but that's not quite the same issue I'm trying to figure out. So why I mentioned it at all is a question worth asking.
What I really mean is this: how can knowing that you're not good at this or not the best at that be a problem? I'm aware that I'm not a terribly great writer or singer or any of those sorts of things - and I don't see how it's wrong to know it. I'm revolted by confidence without a base of skill or superiority, and the whole "believe it and you can achieve it thing" disgusts me almost as much. And, gosh, excessive confidence in general is pretty unappealing as well. I mean, don't you just shake your head when people declare themselves the best of the best - whether they are the best or not? Don't we call them big conceited dorks? Aren't the people who can accept a compliment with grace - and without adding more praise to it - the people we like the best?
Can a person's opinion of themself - without dipping down into, like, inferiority complex territory - be too low? Can they be proud of what they produce, like a killer English paper or a good poem or a beautiful cathedral, without being proud of their ability to produce it in the first place? Does this make any sense? Am I a nutcase who needs to get off the computer and go read a book or something?
Finally! A question we can answer! YES!
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