RawRawA colleague once told me that I’m “rough around the edges” and that was why he likes me. What he meant was that I don’t know how to put up an act, at least for more than a few minutes. I said what I thought even when I knew I was offering my neck up on the chopping block. I wasn’t afraid to own up to what I had said, then keep my eyes fixated on the ax as it swings down on my throat.
Have you ever noticed that more heads have been figuratively chopped off by telling the truth than by spinning lies?
To be fair, when you get caught telling lies, you may pay monetary fines, the amount of which depends on the quality of your lawyer (I won’t get into the morality of lawyers here). But you usually get to keep your head if you tell lies and pay a penalty.
My definition of “cover your ass” is to not leave your house naked without wearing underwear, and preferably another garment to cover your underwear. I don’t know the political sense of that term. I don’t have the inclination to learn the political definition of CYA, and truthfully, I don’t think I have the “talent” to ever learn it.
I couldn’t act for my parents and they witnessed firsthand the wrath of my rebellion, where I transformed almost overnight from a docile and completely obedient child to a withdrawn preteen mutant who literally stopped speaking for a year. I thought nothing of leaving home at age 14 then age 16 when I could not pretend anymore. The longest act I’ve ever put up was to stay in a relationship that was dead by year two, but I was too dumb and afraid to kill that cancerous relationship. (I was a teenager, after all) So I treaded water for another seven or eight, and even then, I was a lousy act.
Because of these experiences and the prices I had paid, I finally learned that I had no option but to be “ME, as I am”. What I am comes out in my writing and in person. If I feel guarded against someone or if I feel uncomfortable in a situation, people around me can perceive it. It shows up on my face and in my tone of voice.
Forget about the reptilian brain - this “thing” I experience is even more primitive. I feel like there is an invisible jellyfish encasing me, and its tentacles are all around - sensing and probing the external environment around it. It perceives people beyond their smiles and goes deep within their facade. It has a high sensitivity for the hidden pains that people try their best to hide. These hidden spots shape the person’s constitution, beyond the act they share in public. When the tentacles touch these very spots, they flinch, and I flinch too. In response, I become cautious and withdrawn. Then there are times when I connect with individuals who appeared unavailable or intimidating. I couldn’t see the blockages that others saw that prevented them from relating with these individuals. In those cases, the jellyfish tentacles felt something else deep down, and compelled me toward those individuals.
When I figuratively flinch without hard evidence, it defies logic and frustrates my analytical mind. I often cannot explain it to my logical and analytical husband, who was often as equally frustrated by my mysterious change in demeanor in some situations as I was.
The irony is that my husband was a recipient of this mechanism of mine.
I let my husband see ME even before I really knew him, and before I even met him in person. I met my husband online, by chance, in a chat room that I began to visit mere days ago. Within the first five chat conversations with this person whom I knew only by a screen name, I decided I could trust him to share the depths of my soul and invite him to witness all - ALL - the skeletons in my closet. Yet I had absolutely no scientific evidence to support my decision.
I live in a mad world. I live in my raw form. This may be a dangerous way to live in the world of facades.
But I don’t know how else to be. (email?)