Navel Gazing in the Extreme - Read At Your Own Risk

Lately there's been a million things I've wanted to blog about but have felt constrained by the public nature of a blog and the fact that slowly, more and more people I know read this blog. This can lead to situations - for example, I've posted things on the blog and had people misinterpret them, when the reality was simply that I hadn't posted the full story, by far. Once it's discussed, things get sorted out, but it happens. I pondered setting up another blog anonymously, or having one that was private, so that only I could read it, or even trying to start an actual paper journal (I never keep those up!). However, it occurred to me that some of the things I want to blog about, I can, as long as I set boundaries.

When my mom first started reading my blog, she emailed me about an entry asking for more details. I emailed back, evasively, hoping she'd realise that I just wasn't interested in giving more details. Eventually I had to say that outright. I've always thought that in some ways, my parents have a more open access to what is going on in my life than many parents - after all, I don't know a lot of people willing to admit to having their vibrator catch on fire to their family. Friends, for sure, as that makes a great drunken story (or a sober one, in my opinion). But I can also understand that since they are so far away, in some ways I suppose, like anyone I care about back home, they really do lack any sense of my life overseas. I consider myself, on the surface, a very open person. If you ask direct questions, I will often answer. If I refuse to answer, though, I expect my boundaries to be respected.

I suppose that may mean that ultimately I am a lot less open and sharing a person than I think I am. I tend to share my life in jokes and snippets - I make light of things a lot. However, that wasn't really what I set out to blog about. This is going to be very confused and sidetracky, I can tell already.

I've always considered myself a shy person. As a kid I was far more comfortable being by myself and reading a book than I was in a social gathering of any kind, even one full of people I considered friends. I was definitely a shy child - but a talkative one. The thing about my talkativeness is that you'll seldom hear much of any substance - in my opinion. While I find it easy to talk about things like money and my sex life with just about anyone, you'll seldom hear about too much that touches me deeply, unless you catch me drunk and introspective. When I'm sober and introspective, I'm far too shy to talk about the things I really feel. I've always been a bit surprised by my social butterfly year - for sure I've been far more social during my entire stay in Korea than ever before, but my second contract was the height of it. It was fun and felt no less like an authentic part of who I am, but it was... odd.

I'm very quick to anger. Certainly most would consider me a person quick to take offense. I don't hold grudges in anger, however. What I do hold onto, what I have always found incredibly hard to let go or move on from, is sadness. It's not something I would ever tell anyone about - when people hurt me, it is unlikely they will ever know why. They may end up knowing that I am angry, and I can certainly in a bad mood make a list of annoyances and grievances, but the problem is always that the list is just a facade. The things that really hurt, they are the things I will not talk about. I may mention them once, quietly or perhaps at the top of my lungs, but after that they will not come up again, though I will stay hurt for a long time. I wish it wasn't that way, because god knows it's not helpful to anyone at all, but there it is.

So, something happened last night that upset me. It has occurred to me that perhaps I misinterpreted the comment - though I don't think I did. If I did, however, then the thing that upset me doesn't even apply. And the thing that upset me was likely not what was intended to be read into the comment anyway, which I totally get. However, there you are. It's one of those comments that didn't happen without some back story there and, on top of that, pushed something that happens to be a very big button for me right now.

So, I'm hurt. Really, this whole saga will not go anywhere from here. I will get over it in a couple of days, on the surface. Deeper, because it is such a big deal to me, it will sit.

And all over a throw-away comment. It really makes me think, because undoubtedly I do such things to people all the time - those little things we say and do, or don't say and don't do. It's so hard to know which of those little things might hurt someone if said on the wrong day, or about the wrong thing.

I suppose the silver lining lies in the fact that the opposite is true. Because while sometimes the tiniest thing can break your day, other times it can make it.