Tonight, sitting alone at dinner in the cafeteria and contemplating what it means to be alone in a room full of people, I had a flash of insight as to why people mistake shy people for aloof people. The last week and a half I have felt very vulnerable, and when I feel vulnerable I cover myself in a cloak that screams, “You know what? I don’t need you!” It’s something I’ve done for a long time, without realizing that people who see me like this don’t see the tiny, childlike voice behind the cloak saying, “Please sit with me. I’m lonely and scared.” They see the covering: “I’m so cool, and you can’t touch me.”

Now that I recognize the message I’m projecting for what it is, I wonder how it is that what I’ve always thought was an imagining, an attitude that existed only in my mind, is so easy for others to comprehend (and not for me). (I guess I have to figure out how to project “Help! I need to talk to somebody” without letting my entire guard down…) Do auras really exist? Do people really perceive these ideas and attitudes from people? When I think I’m protecting myself, am I really just shutting people out? How is it that what I’m thinking is so easy for people to decipher?

Another thing I’ve become “good” at in my life is invisibility. Despite how often I notice when other people I know are around, I’ve found it easy to slip away unnoticed, even passing closely by another person. When I’m in a particularly bad mood, I put up this shield. There’s a catch, though. When I’m feeling this desperate, what makes me feel better is talking to people, not hiding away from them. Again, my defense mechanisms have backfired on me: instead of helping me cope, they’re making me miserable. Perhaps it is a lesson to me: time to learn new defense mechanisms, or even become happy with letting go of them entirely.

One of my favorite blogs lately is safetycomfort, which I encourage everyone to read. Josie is so open and what she talks about most of the time has me nodding my head, amazed that her experiences and mine can sometimes be so similar. And when it doesn’t, I read her anyway. Before I got bronchitis again, I was being clued into how the universe might work (intuition—I can has it, maybe?), and I wrote on Twitter, “The undercurrents of the universe are joy&laughter.” Josie got it immediately. Right now I don’t know if I still get it, but I am going to get back to where I was. Bronchitis knocked me out in ways I can’t possibly explain to others, and I’m angry beyond possibility at my body and immune system. Until then I wrap my cloak of invisibility (hostility?) (vulnerability) around myself and try to get through as best I can.

Or maybe, I continue plodding along and pluck up the courage (out of nowhere!) to contact friends to hang out with, because that’s what will ultimately put my spirits back in order. Tomorrow is a big semi-formal at school, and I’m excited not only to dress up but to have a good excuse to hang out with all of my favorite people. Hopefully.

P.S. I’ve been experimenting with the blog layout lately, and probably will continue to do so for a while yet. It’s kind of a fun thing to do at the end of the day, good way to stop thinking about things… So please, pardon the dust!

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Dreamwidth lately, and after the movie and knitting I found this post: the ghost in the room, or, why modesty is a dirty fucking word. It cracked through a lot of things about me that I have blinded myself to. I’d really encourage you to read through all of the post and the comment threads I link here. When I look at myself, all I see are my flaws and the things I haven’t done yet. I see all the things I wish I were and am not. I remember in middle school and early high school I would get compliments on my capability with teaching myself computer and web design skills, but I would brush them off until I didn’t hear them. Exactly like this:

Someone offers you a compliment on something you have done or accomplished; ‘modesty’ forces you to demur and claim that your achievement wasn’t all that special; your complimenter, and all those who have heard the exchange, are left with the impression that because they value this thing you have done (and they must have valued it or they wouldn’t have complimented it), and because you claim that it wasn’t anything worthy of value, that their ability to accurately assess value is broken.

When I was 11 or 12, I taught myself HTML and some CSS and PHP, as well as how to make crude graphics so I could play with the other kids on the Internet. To me it didn’t seem like a big deal, just a fun thing to do, so I brushed off the compliments. I didn’t think they were true. After a while I became immune. I don’t really remember if anyone said they were proud of me in the last few years, because if they did, I wouldn’t absorb it. I didn’t have accomplishments, only setbacks.

Tutoring other kids in math class in sixth grade instead of paying attention to the lesson because it came so easily to me. Taking all of the available Honors/AP classes and maintaining a 4.0 GPA four years of high school—that certainly wasn’t good enough. Being in the orchestra for a year and being in the newspaper staff for a year and a half. Acing all the language classes I take, even learning German and Japanese alongside each other. None of this seemed like an accomplishment to me. I never did enough.

Part of what blocked me, personally, from seeing my accomplishments as accomplishments is probably what is addressed in this comment thread about ‘gifted’ learning. School has come easily to me for so long that, as one commenter posted:

The thing is – you often find that people in the gifted and talented set aren’t taught how to learn. I’ve ranted about this at length, but the short version: At school, you don’t just learn stuff, you learn how to struggle through and figure out how things work. Unless your experience of “learning” is simply taking in new information, understanding first pass, and doing it. Sure – things like music and art you need to practice, but things like maths and English, it’s just information storage.

That is exactly how I’ve gone through life. School comes easy to me, and I’ve had to learn how to learn—a little bit, since coming to college. It’s still easy for me. I don’t study very often, still, because I simply don’t know how to. I have never had to. It’s hard for me to comprehend friends and peers who spend almost 24/7 studying, and I know they assume I spend a lot of time studying, since they do, but I waste a lot of time instead. So I don’t consider things like “maintaining a 4.0 in high school” and “getting good grades” something to be proud of. It’s just what I do. I never took pride in my work, just saw what I hadn’t done right yet.

The same poster also wrote this:

Also – because you’re a Mensa member, or you’re brilliant at this or that, people start expecting you to be brilliant at everything. You’re not allowed to struggle through something even if you want to try, because “You’re smart, things come easy to you.” – it’s the huge weight of expectation on you. (citation)

Yes. This.

It also makes me a little uncomfortable with sharing what I knit, because this is another area where I don’t think I “deserve” praise. I taught myself to knit when I was very young from a pamphlet from Michael’s. No one helped me, I had to decipher the instructions and diagrams myself. And I did, I even figured out cables. My skills since then probably haven’t changed that much. (Although I try a much wider variety of patterns now!) It was fun, not hard, so I don’t know what the big deal is.

But:

And it isn’t just the huge achievements that need recognition. Every time you do something that’s hard for you, every time you transcend some personal boundary or cross some goalpost you thought uncrossable or work really fucking hard at something (even — especially — if you fail) or do something you thought you couldn’t do, it is an accomplishment, and it’s important to acknowledge it. Every time you receive a compliment and say “thank you” instead of “oh, it’s nothing”, you are striking a blow against a poisonous, toxic, and dangerous social model. And every time you do that publicly, you give strength to someone else who sees you do it, because by accurately valuing your accomplishments and achievements as accomplishments and achievements, you teach others that their similar accompishments and achievements are things to be valued — and thus, by extension, that they are to be valued. (from the original post)

I remember thinking last weekend, “Why is my mom telling me that she and my dad are proud of me for signing a lease? Isn’t this what they expected of me? Isn’t this what they expect every normal 21-year-old to be able to do?” And then I realized: this is a big deal for me. They’re making it a big deal for me. It’s not that I failed at something, it’s that I finally succeeded at something that is very hard for me. That is something to be proud of. The paper I’ve been working on all weekend? Instead of re-reading it in the morning and seeing all the things I could have done better, I’m going to re-read it and see all the things I’ve done well. I’m proud, really proud, maybe for the first time, of what I’ve written. What I’ve done. I worked hard, and I can tell that it is a much better paper than one I could have written in one sitting.

The knitting that I take for granted? Yes, maybe it’s harder for some people, and easier for others, but it’s time for me to stop underestimating what I’ve done.

What if, say, the constant torrent of thought that occurs in my mind didn’t berate me or pick on me, but consciously realized what I’ve accomplished and lauded myself for it? And then quieted down and headed back to do more fun, fulfilling work? I know that switching the inner monologue from things I can’t do well to things I’ve achieved will help me make peace with myself. I started crying when I realized how little pride in myself I allow myself feel, and how good it felt to let myself soak in my accomplishments for a moment. That’s got to mean something. That maybe I matter to me, and I should care about me.

Which is really the first time I’ve considered that I might matter.

Thanks for reading this far. It means a lot to me.

(Also cross-posted to my Dreamwidth account: syntaxofthings.)

A young girl thought to herself as she chose her clothes for the day, “Hurrah! Finally I have my nice new skirts back, freshly cleaned and ready to be worn. Today is the day I shall make one of the skirts’ debut into the school. I shall wear the orange, swooshy one, with a sleek brown top, and of course my sandals, which will show off the nice purple color of my toes. And of course I must add jewelry—”

And so the young girl outfitted herself just so, and was happy with her appearance, and went off to breakfast in another building. On her walk she smiled to herself, thinking how tough she was, how firm, how little the apparent cold touched her. She observed many other students in jackets and jeans, huddled together, and thought how cold they were to be come “spring” semester. But she, she still wore summer skirts, sandals, and short sleeves—after all, anything over 12˚C was cheerfully warm, and it was 18˚, and should get up to 23˚.

Not ten minutes into her breakfast, she looked out the window, at the drab grey landscape, and made a peculiar discovery: it rained—no, it poured—no, that was “raining cats and dogs”! Appalled at herself for thinking she was beyond the weather, the poor girl sat in misery for the last of her breakfast, wondering how she would get back to her warm house and not catch cold or jump in puddles and not get her feet all wet.

Luckily later the rain paused, allowing the young girl to find her way home. Once there she re-adjusted her outfit: no more sandals, for these grey skies promised still more rain. Instead, a green pullover when out in the rain (she wouldn’t want to aggravate her current frail condition!), and sturdier shoes with blue-green socks; and, of course, set the umbrella next to the backpack and don’t forget to use it.

There: that’s better. The young girl knows how weak her lungs are, and how quickly they catch cold. With a warm chest and warm feet, the rain and cold couldn’t affect her too badly; or, at least, not worsen her current frail condition (a bit of a raw throat, a bit of a stuffed nose, and a bit of a headache, and, soon, a bit of wheezing). Luckily, now she is back at home, with an afternoon off from school, and a tea kettle calling her name, and a warm couch on which to rest, read, and drink tea. Perfect activities for such a grey, rainy day.

I need a week away from the computer: where I read and knit and listen to the birds sing, feel the sun shine on my face, listen to thunder clap and delight in the lightning. Where I begin, slowly, to write in my journal again, and to pass the time in a more creative manner, a more fulfilling manner. Instead I procrastinate on all my papers that are due in the next two weeks. (O! I have so much to procrastinate on. A ten page paper, two finals. A trip to Krakow and a trip to a wine distillery.) I don’t know how to balance: either I am completely relaxed or completely tense. And I can’t keep tense up very long.

But that’s not what this is about. That was stress, and there is another story today that I would like to bring up. One day, a girl with a blog was looking at other blogs, trying to see what she could see. She wasn’t very good at this magical act called blogging; she didn’t blog on a schedule, nor did she write about very interesting topics. But she was still obsessed with this whole new world, and the fact that it gave her an outlet to write in. When she got going she needed to write, desperately, daily. When she was in a dry spell, she didn’t know what to do with herself.

This girl had a fairly steady, small, loyal group of readers that she enjoyed hearing from, but she wondered what to do to make it bigger, or to really get to know these people. She had always heard of the “blog community” and wondered really, what was that again? Wasn’t a community people who did things for each other? What did she have to contribute? She tried to be a part of the knitters: but she didn’t knit enough. She had tried to be a part of the people her age who made pretty graphic art: but she wasn’t talented enough, nor did she write enough about her private life.

Really, she didn’t know what she was doing. So she looked into her drafts folder, and behold: some links, some pretty things to look at and soak up and wonder how it affects her life. For example, Blogging squared: bloggers blogging about blogging. But saying things that this girl needed to hear, like: We’re all doing our best, and some of us write a few words about it and put it on the internet. Not to be judged, just to share. Not to be judged. Just to share. How do I share? the girl thought. I am a quiet, private person, who never had many friends. What do I have to give?

Another blogger wrote a bunch of jumbled thoughts, trying to explain blogging to herself and how she sees it. The girl reading tried to understand. She remembered understanding it once, technically, but maybe not in effect. Or maybe there was something about blogs being too “nicey nice”. The girl thought about the knitting blogs she knows. Is that why she doesn’t fit in? Is she uncomfortable with that? Yes, many knitting blogs seem to be rather bleak of individuality, but not all of them. Is that why she doesn’t seem to fit in with them?

Is she going to be shunned for thinking that?

Maybe she needs to have the courage to think it anyway. To break free and be honest: isn’t that what she always was anyway?

Being accepted: the unattainable goal that gets in the way of honesty. Realizing that, the girl shut herself away from her blog for a little while and tried to figure out if she could handle that.

Rebee had a super idea yesterday: what if we put together a small group of people who like to write and create a web site for them to share their writings, just among this small group? It’ll be like a support group, but for creative writing. All right! I said. And since then she’s written about it on her blog and LJ and snatched two more people who are interested; we’ve spent much of today starting to get the web site set up. Now I have to make sure and ask here: Is there anyone who reads my blog who would be interested in joining us?

It’s a very low-key venture, just a group of people who like to write commenting on each others’ works. However, the point of the matter is that because we have this net of people to share with, we actually have to write. So if anyone likes to write but needs accountability to keep writing, let me know and I’ll hook you up!