Shutting Up
I talk too much. Sometimes I have to forcibly shut my mouth. Those of you who know me will know this, and hopefully find it somehow amusing/appealing/endearing enough to continue to know me. I do try, know this if you know anything, I do try.
And as I grow older and think more about change, personal change, and try to decide what about myself is worth agonizing over, I keep coming back to my incessant talking.
Over the past half decade I have come to terms with various parts of myself that I once wished would change. From superficial to super-secret, I came to that moment where I would smile, hug that little personality-deformity close to my intimately self-aware breast and tell it that it was ok just the way it was. Validating as this procedure is, it can walk a knife edge between self-acceptance and gratuitous inability to change. Let me elaborate.
There is, of course, no joy in changing constantly. Whether you change to please society, please your parents, your lover, your friends, yourself. It is very difficult to be a happy, self-confident human being if you are always looking at yourself from a fix-it perspective. So you decide that life is too short and that you are ok being 150 lbs, insecure, sometimes emotionally needy, occasionally sharp-tongued and hopelessly awkward with men who intimidate you for no good reason. All this and more, becomes more than ok, it becomes a little piece of self that I cling to like a liferaft. This is me! All these little things that I once wished away! My enjoyment of Star Trek, my obsession with child-like wonder, the tiny habits that we hope one day will be loved by someone else because they make us who we are.
Back to the talking. Of course when I start to get involved with someone it is inevitable. Joking, and always in good fun, I can't help but hear that little comment about me always talking talking talking that I stop to wonder if I should try to shut up. And so I do, but its not who I am, and invariably it comes back around to me, talking talking talking. This time around though, I seem to have found someone who reciprocates, at least more than certain individuals in the past, and perhaps that means that I will actually learn to shut up for a while, because someone else will be filling the space between silences.
The point of all this came up last night when I joked that giving head was difficult for me because it meant I couldnt' run my mouth off. I got a laugh at this one, and silently smiled inside, holding my chattiness close and then closing my mouth, asking him questions, and letting him talk talk talk.
And as I grow older and think more about change, personal change, and try to decide what about myself is worth agonizing over, I keep coming back to my incessant talking.
Over the past half decade I have come to terms with various parts of myself that I once wished would change. From superficial to super-secret, I came to that moment where I would smile, hug that little personality-deformity close to my intimately self-aware breast and tell it that it was ok just the way it was. Validating as this procedure is, it can walk a knife edge between self-acceptance and gratuitous inability to change. Let me elaborate.
There is, of course, no joy in changing constantly. Whether you change to please society, please your parents, your lover, your friends, yourself. It is very difficult to be a happy, self-confident human being if you are always looking at yourself from a fix-it perspective. So you decide that life is too short and that you are ok being 150 lbs, insecure, sometimes emotionally needy, occasionally sharp-tongued and hopelessly awkward with men who intimidate you for no good reason. All this and more, becomes more than ok, it becomes a little piece of self that I cling to like a liferaft. This is me! All these little things that I once wished away! My enjoyment of Star Trek, my obsession with child-like wonder, the tiny habits that we hope one day will be loved by someone else because they make us who we are.
Back to the talking. Of course when I start to get involved with someone it is inevitable. Joking, and always in good fun, I can't help but hear that little comment about me always talking talking talking that I stop to wonder if I should try to shut up. And so I do, but its not who I am, and invariably it comes back around to me, talking talking talking. This time around though, I seem to have found someone who reciprocates, at least more than certain individuals in the past, and perhaps that means that I will actually learn to shut up for a while, because someone else will be filling the space between silences.
The point of all this came up last night when I joked that giving head was difficult for me because it meant I couldnt' run my mouth off. I got a laugh at this one, and silently smiled inside, holding my chattiness close and then closing my mouth, asking him questions, and letting him talk talk talk.
posted by Care | 1:14 PM
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