how i am similar to a tur-duck-en

Matthew 10:29-31

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."

I have spent my life pretending to be an extrovert. 

How does one pretend to be an extrovert, you ask? 

Quite simply. You act like you aren't afraid to be who you are. Which in my case, is just a tad bit ironic, because in acting like I wasn't afraid to be who I was, I have been hiding who I am. (Personality-ception...)

I sometimes find myself behaving like the life of the party - not that I actually go to parties, I meant that completely metaphorically ('aint nobody got time for that) - but at the same time being utterly unsure if my behavior is the right thing to do. If I'm being good enough for them (the royal them) to like me. To respect me. It's an unsettling realization. 

In a class I took about the constructed self, we talked a lot about how there are theories that see the world as a stage, and ourselves as all of the players. I could really see that applying to my life. Not in that I see the world as a type of stage, but that I see my actions as staged - as if I'm following a set of instructions someone wrote on how to be a stereotypical funny, attractive, interesting, intelligent person. Someone who is good enough. 

I have been spending a lot of my time creating a facade to cover up my insecurities, which date back to when my age was in the single digits. I had a head-start in the insecurity department, let me tell you. Not only was I a rather chubby child, but I was also pretty nerdy, which doesn't earn you many points in an elementary school classroom. From the time I was really young I learned that the things that made me different weren't things to flaunt, so I covered those things with what I thought people would like, and I continued like that for a long time. 

I never crossed any lines that I thought I shouldn't - like I never did drugs or got involved with anything truly harmful to myself, but I definitely put myself in situations that I shouldn't have and those aren't situations that I'm proud of. And the worst part? Those situations were all a product of me trying to make people like me. Because behind the loud, funny, outspoken person that I showed people, was a soft interior. Kind of like a tootsie pop, or a perfectly baked brownie (can you guess what I'm craving? It starts with a "c" and ends in "hocolate"...) I was fragile enough on the inside that I thought I needed to make a shell to protect myself. I stuck my introverted-ness inside an extrovert, kind of like a tur-duck-en is a chicken in a duck in a turkey. If you don't look closely enough, you might think that thing was a regular hunk of poultry, but you would be wrong in that assumption. Completely wrong. I have never had a tur-duck-en, but I can guess that they are nothing at all like your run-of-the-mill bird on the dinner table. 

So in short, I am not a regular piece of poultry. I am a complicated one, especially since I don't quite know how to take the duck and chicken out of the turkey without cutting into it first. And that sounds pretty complicated in itself. But on the other hand, so is continuing the way I'm going right now. See, the biggest problem with being an introvert hiding in an extrovert, is that when I find people who understand where I am coming from with my feelings and my thoughts, then I latch on like a leech and I gush all of the feels - to the point that I think I am probably a little scary at times. My fiance was one of those people, and I often-times wonder how I managed to avoid driving him off when I first met him. I was quite the little over-sharer, because he understood. I could relate to him, and him to me. That's why we worked so well on a larger scale, and that's why we're here now. 

Because of my fiance, and the wonderful people who I am surrounded by, I am slowly learning that God made me the way He did for a reason, and that the reason may be something I figure out someday, or it may not be. But that's okay too. Because I have somewhat separated myself from scenarios where I feel the need to hide my true colors in a box - I can take more steps back and have been learning how to be who I am effectively, without over-sharing, and being unendingly awkward. 

I can only hope that someday, somehow, I will be able to separate the inside from the outside so that people can see who I really am. That nerdy, chubby 9 year old, who's favorite food was macaroni and cheese... (some things never change...)

Me, in all of my nerdiness. :) 

a short story about how a co-worker changed my life - enjoy.

i'm in the mood for story time, so here you go.

From about age 12 to age 18, I was one of those people that others rarely actually wanted to spend time around. not because i was particularly weird, (i was, but that didn't seem to be their reason...) or because i was rude, or anything like that at all. 

for the longest time, i couldn't figure out what the problem was, and i let it kind of eat at me. of course i acted like it didn't bother me at all that i didn't really have friends, per se, i more had acquaintances at school. people who were fine spending time with me when i was there, and when there were school related activities, but who wouldn't dare be seen out in public with me outside of that school-related realm. i acted like it was completely fine, but it definitely bothered me. 

and it bothered me up until about a week ago. and then i was at work, and i made a realization. 

i used to take myself too seriously. 

there, i said it. i did. that was the difference between me, and pretty much everyone else that i knew from the start of high school to graduation. and not only did i take myself too seriously, i took everything too seriously! not to say that it's bad to sometimes be serious about things, like getting a job, or starting a business - its definitely okay to be serious about those things. the problem comes in when you are serious about everything, to the point that you become dramatic. 

i was definitely to that point. 

because i took things so seriously, if something went wrong it was a serious matter instead of being something that i could a) laugh off, or b) easily remedy and go on with life. i mean, if i were to go back in time as the person that i am now, i wouldn't want to spend time with me either! i would probably want nothing to do with myself. 

i have a particular co-worker to credit with this realization, but she will likely never read this. but if she does, she will know who she is. 

since high school, i have learned that nothing is that big, including myself. maybe nuclear war-fare. you can't joke about that... its some serious stuff... but anyway - nothing is so big that you can't go forward. you can argue with me all you want, but that is what i have come to realize. if you take yourself so seriously that you can't function as a human being who makes mistakes and learns from them in a productive way then you should probably take a step back and think about whether you would like to continue the way that you're headed now. you may not notice it, but there are probably things going on around you because of your behavior that you don't want to continue. 

so if my new puppy pees on the floor, i clean it up. that's the end of it. if i'm late to work because i was writing a blog post, i'll apologize and make sure i'm on time the next day - but i'm done with all of the dwelling, and the oh-so-serious nature of life getting me bogged down in piles and piles and piles of feelings and reactions and stresses that really don't matter much in the grand scheme of things. 

i will, of course, sometimes catch myself in those thoughts, thinking those stressful things, but then i remember that it will all be okay, if i just take a freaking chill pill and figure out the most reasonable solution. 

i think the most important part of this is that when i learned that the fate of the universe did NOT, in fact, rest on my shoulders (shocking, right?) i learned that i can actually be funny. i have a sense of humor! who knew... 

the end.