If You Really Knew Me....

If you really knew me, you would know that I cry more from pride than I do from sadness. I tear up every time I’m at an event where the national anthem is being played. Or if I watch little kids sing (like at a school program). Or while I’m singing Christmas carols. Or various other things just like this. You know what I just noticed? It’s weird, but those things all revolve around music or singing.

If you really knew me, you would know that I struggle EVERY DAY with keeping myself happy versus making other people happy. And it’s a pain in the ass. Every once in a while it builds up and I have a mini explosion of depression where I spend one day (I never stay down long) at home, all alone, in my pajamas. But even though it sounds rough… I wouldn’t want it any other way. Because making other people happy is what I love to do and ultimately makes me happy. So it works out and is totally worth it like 99% of the time. I mean, I have my moments, but mostly I’m a pretty happy camper. I’m almost always optimistic and I do a pretty good job of keeping my struggles hidden on the inside. Because I love you all and you’re all worth it.

If you really knew me, you would know that I have a weird sort of ADD for life. I don’t have ADD in the typical way at all. I can do the same activity for hours and hours and hours. But I have some sort of weird ADD condition which causes me to change my interests and hobbies constantly. I think it stems from the fact that I love learning and doing new things. But in a few weeks I’ll be done with it and moving on to something else. It’s probably because there’s always another new thing to learn and do. It sucks because I have trouble finishing projects and rarely spend enough time on one thing to get to a point where I do it really well. It seems like as soon as I have done it for a few weeks and can do it right, I move on. I never get better than average at anything. But I sure can do a lot of different things, so I guess it works out.

If you really knew me, you would know that there is something wrong with me in my head. I hate being fat and convince myself constantly that “tomorrow is the day”. But tomorrow comes and I’m so upset I didn’t wake up skinny that I convince myself I’ll just try again tomorrow. This is a very sad, but true, story.

If you really knew me, you would know that I am ridiculously shy in real life. Sure, I’m awesome on the internet. But in person, unless you’re in my circle of friends that I see all the time, I will probably be extremely quiet and won’t talk to you; because I expect people not to like me. I don’t even like talking to the cashiers at Wal-Mart. I am afraid I’ll say something stupid or embarrass people somehow. My cheeks get all red and I keep my face and eyes lowered. Some of my friends have told me that when they first met me, they thought I was a snob because they were told I’m hilarious and then I didn’t even speak to them (except to be extremely polite, cause I’m a very polite person) for days or weeks. Then, once I’ve “let them in” they realize how lucky they had it and wish I would just shut up again.

If you really knew me, you would know that I have always wanted to do two things: photography and writing. As a child I dreamed of growing up and working for National Geographic magazine. I used to make mom buy me used NG’s at garage sales and I would hoard them in my room. As an adult, I still dream of being really good at these two things; though I no longer want to combine them. The writing, in particular, is my main love. But photography is easier than writing, so I tend to concentrate more on that. One of the reasons I haven’t broken out with a great American novel is because I’m a perfectionist. I hate the idea of sketching out a story and planning out a plot, etc. I want to just sit down in front of a blank word document and write the first sentence and then write every consecutive sentence until I reach the end. Obviously that will never work; unless you’re working on something very short, bringing me to my next paragraph.

If you really knew me, you would know that I sometimes write poetry. My poetry covers a wide variety of subjects. I say “sometimes write” because I have never really sat down and worked on a poem. They just seem to randomly spew forth from my brain in a huge rush and I have to immediately find some place to write them down before they’re gone. This comes in spells. A lot of poems have simply never been written down because I just wasn’t able to stop and do it. Sadly, they are soon forgotten. Several years ago I was a poetry-writing madwoman. Then I had a dry spell for quite a while. I never know when it’s going to happen. It seems to depend on what’s going on in my life. Sometimes it’s happy things, sometimes it’s not. A lot of my poems seem to deal with the occult or supernatural, which I love reading and hearing about, but do not practice or participate in. So if you read any of those, don’t be concerned. They just came to me, I didn’t experience them.