“Please don’t blog about this.” I said or he said or we both said to each other. We agreed and then went to our blogs and made obtuse references to what we’d promised each other we wouldn’t blog. That was years ago, but as I tweeted to my friend Evelyn today, I blog very little of the deeply personal these days in an effort to keep a private life while I live publicly.
I am both flattered and embarrassed when I meet someone that has read my blog or, more likely, follows me on Twitter. It connects immediately to a moment when I was a few years out of High School and realized that, while I was never popular, I was more well-known than I knew. This embarrassment I feel for being well known for writing about my cat, my inability to cook, my obsession with Matilda, Moody’s and Metropolis, the CTA and my new company… the embarrassment is turning into a much sharper version of self-deprecating humor than I’ve ever turned on myself before.
I insisted to a man I was interested in that I was, in fact, nobody special. That he was mistaken. That I am not a cool kid, nor will I ever be. That I am nobody special and to stop insisting that I might be.
What if I’m actually afraid that I am someone special? What if great things are expected of me and I don’t know if I can deliver? Is it possible that I’ve gotten too good at self-deprecating humor? That I am so convincing of the total accidental nature of my success, that I’ve convinced him and others that indeed… I don’t have what they are looking for.
Despite all of the arguments that I’ve written in my journal, the potential compromises and solutions, the problems I’ve acknowledged and let go of… I don’t have the fighting instinct to say, “No, wait, I’m much more than I let you think I am.”
I know that I’m capable of more.
Of giving more, of loving more, of writing more, of doing more and being more than I am today. I’m becoming that special person. I’d like to be someone that speaks up in the future and explains why I think the barriers aren’t really as big as we thought.
I need to stop saying that I’m nobody special, because people are starting to believe me. Mainly, I’m starting to believe me and the record has been on very fast repeat lately and I have to find something else to occupy my thoughts.
Comments