Do you ever think you’ve got yourself all figured out? Ever astonished by what someone else points out & have this inner feeling of your jaw dropping?
Took me many years to accept & notice how paradoxyl I truly am. Could be the nature of the Gemini (if you follow that sorta thing). It’s both a curse & blessing to see/feel various sides of a situation. It can be very helpful when counseling others, but DEAR LORD makes personal decision making a nightmare.
I always depict myself to be & have been an open book for much of my adult life despite the severity, depth, or emotionally tolling some aspects should be to me. Most “dark” situations eventually become easy conversation pieces if appropriate timing.
It wasn’t until a new male interest with his fingers intertwined under his chin, slightly nodding, gazing at me across the lunch room styled table in that pizzeria: “what are you so guarded for?”
In that moment, I wanted to defensively spew back “I’m not, I’m an open book” until it dawned on me. Being an open book doesn’t necessarily mean not guarded and certainly does not mean not hidden away also.
Think about it, books are not open at all. They too have deepest of stories to share & intimate parts to reveal. But it’s all pre-written, rehearsed, & will remain with the same events.
That was exactly it. I was rehearsed & used to what I was “open” with. I crave relativity & to understand others for some internal gratification of feeling understood… but not by others so much. By MYSELF.
I was never actually allowing others to know ME passed the open pages & I never realized until my mouth full of the best margherita pizza I’ve ever had prohibiting me fro the typical defensive response.
Was a self-”word to the wise” type moment… listening to the questions asked, less of what is told, & more of how it is conveyed.
-t
