11:47pm December 1, 2014

"I know what you’re about, but I don’t know you!"

This is something I’ve been hearing my whole adult life. It’s like people don’t think I am opening up to them emotionally or something. But I don’t know how to open up to people emotionally if what I do already is not enough for them.

I mean… On tumblr I open up emotionally, right? And on my main poetry blog, I’m certain I do. I’m a very emotional person, whether I like it or not. I used to do my best not to be, but it’s part of who I am. I can no more change it than I could change hearts without surgery. And I certainly can’t change my metaphorical heart, the seat of love and other emotions. Sure, I can learn to control them better, even learn how to stop certain emotional reactions before they start. But I can’t become unemotional. I spent two decades trying. I am highly emotional and there’s nothing wrong with that.

So why, when my friends and I all know how emotional I am, do so many people from acquaintances to strangers accuse me of not opening up to them emotionally? It’s not as if I’m deliberately holding back. Especially ever since my adrenal insufficiency and myasthenia have become more severe, I cry easier, laugh easier, cuss easier, and cant hide those things the way I used to. It takes energy to hide who you are. And even as I get more energy back, the habit of just being myself has stuck and I’m glad for that.

I don’t understand how so many people can look at me and see a person with limited emotional range. I have so many nuances of emotion that no thesaurus can do them justice. The only way for me to communicate the more obscure ones is to be around people who can read me well.

But even so I will never understand “You’ve told us what you’re about but not who you are.” Because I think who I am comes through everything I do. And that includes my feelings.

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