On Keeping Things Private, and Being Misunderstood

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been analyzing why I keep so much inside. Why I don’t share my desires with others most of the time, and why the most important, sacred things to me, often remain a mystery to those around me (unless they’ve known me for years). I used to think it was just because I’m not good at talking about that stuff - I’m much better with writing. Verbally, I don’t think I could do any of it justice. So I opt instead to keep it to myself. But over the past few weeks, I’ve realized it goes beyond that.

I think I live with the expectation that people are not going to understand the things that are most important to me - that they’re not going to be able to fully grasp just how much those things mean to me, and how deeply I feel about them. And so I keep them to myself as a form of protection. Because though not being able to share the things that are most important to you is difficult, sharing them only to have them be completely misunderstood or dismissed, is worse. The problem with that, of course, is that you can’t truly connect with anyone unless you’re able to share those things. Which in my case won’t happen until I trust someone enough, and believe they’re able to understand the things I value… And it takes a lot, and a really long time, for me to get there.

But for the moment, this is where I'm at. Learning, step by step, to take the risk that I will be misunderstood if I share the things that matter so deeply to me. And knowing that this very likely will happen, because it's happened before. And yet, it will not be the end of the world when it does. To be honest, when I have had it happen before - when I've shared something that was deeply important to me and felt like the person on the receiving end did not understand, or dismissed the subject, I've been left with a sense of regret. As if now that I've shared something so private and important, it has somehow been cheapened by the other person's inability to grasp its value.

But the reality is that the things that are most important to us can't be cheapened just because someone else fails to understand their worth. After all, it was not anyone else's opinion that first made these things valuable to us. It was only our opinion that mattered initially. And in the end, it's up to us to decide what we will deem as valuable - regardless of anyone else's opinion.

There's one other thing that this realization has made me consider as well, and it's the important role that writing continues to play in my life. I didn't start this blog to make money off it or to amass a large number of followers (I'd be failing miserably at both those goals if I had). I started it because writing is my primary form of self-expression, and because it allows me to be vulnerable and transparent in a way that I haven't quite mastered verbally. There is no one to interrupt you with their own thoughts and biases when you write - no one to question your conclusions or doubt your conjectures. Writing is a way of being unabashedly honest with the world, and the greatest tool I have for that at my disposal.

So, on to being brave. On to being honest. On to being vulnerable. In writing, for now. And in other ways as well... little by little, and step by step.

#2019 #writing