I appreciate this screams a little too loudly ‘look at me, I’m so authentic’. But fuck, if I am one thing, it’s authentic.
And I know that I have threatened others many times because of their fraudulence – for the most part, completely unintentionally.
Let me be clear – when I say authentic, I do not mean perfect, not right all the time – understanding perception can skew reality.
But qualities like being genuine, honest and self aware – let me give an extra big shout to the self awareness – are hugely important to me.
My bullshit radar is fine tuned. My tolerance for dishonesty, of the self deceptive kind especially, is low. Dishonesty like robbing a bank I can live with, especially if anyone would like to share the profits with me.
This has not meant I’ve always been 100% self aware – so fucking much not this. For example I’ve had years of convincing myself and others that relationships which were disastrous, were great. Or that situations I had gotten myself into were lovely when they were clearly shit.
But I’ve always done all I can to dig deeper, do whatever is necessary (therapy, anyone?) to get more honest with myself. To challenge myself in my own bullshit. And holy shit that has been hard at times. Digging into parts of myself I’d really prefer to keep hidden – the shameful parts, the part I gloss over, admitting to myself and others when and where I’ve been full of shit. Go through layer after layer to get to the core of it.
It’s literally a way of being for me and always has been. I love the freedom it gives me, even if it’s hard won. I love being able to look in the mirror and see my clear reflection, not trying to hide or cover something up. Pretty sure it’s why I don’t like/wear make up – I always hated the taking it off because I’d felt like I’d presented myself out there as something different. To be clear – I am not however, adverse to a bit of botox and fillers 😉. Nor, apparently, a bit of hypocrisy.
And I find people either love or hate me for this. Sometimes both simultaneously. Or love then hate me, rarely the other way around. It took me years and years to a) understand this, b) accept it and c) stop giving any fucks.
It’s a little bit like having brown eyes and people reacting to you for having brown eyes. You have absolutely no idea why they are reacting, often they don’t know why there are reacting and then you don’t understand why the fuck brown eyes are a problem. Because this part of me is as much part of me as my brown eyes.
It makes the friendships I have special, in the good sense of that word, and can make some challenging. Because I will name things and I hope for others to do the same for me.
I was recently faced, in a public situation, with a huge dose of dishonesty directed at me. And it left me reeling, as it often does. Because I still rarely understand it on a gut level – I can intellectually figure it out, but inside I’m just like ‘why? why are you lying, pretending?’
Not really sure of the point of this post – namely because it’s inspired by a situation I can’t write about for a whole host of reasons, therefore I’m writing around it. And like I’ve been saying, talking around things is not a strong point of mine ;-).
Life Changing Times 