I've been thinking about what it's like to be 1 1/2. No, of course I don't remember. It's on my mind because I've been with my nephew all week and spending time with him brings up a lot of things for me. About my own childhood especially, about the way I am now, about his future which I worry about because I want his life to be filled only with good things and it makes me think about what we didn't have. I look at this little tiny person, and it saddens me the way we were treated growing up.
Why I love to spend time with him is because he has no real awareness of anything other than the moment. True, if you take something away from him he remembers a little while later that he still wants it, but he is very much present. He's too little really to exist outside of right now. Whereas I, as an adult, exist everywhere but right now most of the time. The past and the future - but never the moment. I want to be that way in the world - where the most exciting and important thing is the thing right in front of me and nothing exists outside of my immediate attention. Maybe what I really want is to be free of adult things like worry and anxiety and fear of the future and sadness. But there is no way to be free of those things. I still want to be present and focused and I want to enjoy it. This is something that has been a struggle all of my adult life.
My nephew is wild and silly and makes goofy faces and says the cutest things. And you chase him and he runs behind the cardboard box and you pretend you can't see him and sneak up on him and he laughs and he says "more" "more" "more" until you do it again, but it sounds more like "mo" "mo" "mo." What I want to remember is what it's like to be that unaware of myself in the world. To not be aware of the fact that people are making judgments about me, looking at me, liking me or not liking me. I love the way a really little kid can be totally silly and goofy and not care at all what someone thinks, to not even be aware that someone may be thinking anything. I've realized though that people aren't paying as much attention to me as I always would have thought (how self-centered of me right?). People are too self absorbed to care what I'm doing or what I look like or how I'm behaving, but that of feeling of everyone is looking at me has never really gone away.
I'm a pretty shy person. That's probably the way most people would describe me - pretty shy and extremely quiet, not at all outgoing. I'm fairly self-conscious and I am pretty uncomfortable in my own skin. I won't play Cranium. I hate that game. I basically hate game playing because it just seems to be an opportunity for me to embarrass myself. I don't do well in large groups of people that I don't know. I'm always the one sitting there saying nothing. I'm more of an observer. I'm much better one on one with people. It's interesting though, because not everyone has that assessment of me. Some people would say that I'm not quiet at all. It depends I guess and honestly that part of me has changed a lot. I am a lot more comfortable. I have learned not to care as much what people think, or not to worry about it and obsess over it.
But from the time I can remember, all I can remember is being painfully shy and terribly uncomfortable around people, no matter who they were. I was always uncomfortable around pretty much everyone. When I watch my nephew play and just be who he is - I wonder, was I ever that silly, that goofy, did I ever not worry about what people thought of me, did I ever not have that awareness coloring everything I did? Ever since I can remember, I have been terrified of being myself, even as a very little kid. And I always thought I had to be a certain thing or a certain way to get someone to like me because of course no one would just like me for who I am. For most of my life I have walked around with the feeling of - if only you knew me - I mean really knew the real me, you wouldn't be my friend. Why do I think that? I don't know. It's some combination of low self esteem and a fear of abandonment I suppose.
Anyway, I wish I could be the way he is in the world and not have that awareness of myself that makes me overly self-conscious and terrified to be me. I just wish I could remember what that feels like.
1 comment:
i could have written much of what you said about shy and not outgoing. yes, yes and more yes.
i get better at it as i get older, and at the same time, i care less. both of those are good things.
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