I live with a somewhat consistent fear that the people in my life are going to one day discover something about me they don't care for and decide, "eh, fuck it. See ya." It's always been there and in my good ol' younger days, I always chalked it up to insecurity. But as I've gotten older and thankfully, far more secure in who I am than ever before, I've often wondered why the hell it's still a lingering fear. It's not constant and I consider myself lucky that I'm drawn to people who challenge that fear, allowing it dissipate (and on the rare occasion, disappear) rather than people who perpetuate it. But still, it's there. Only when you get down to it, the 'why' doesn't really matter at all. No matter the reason for its existence, I can either let it stick around or *I* can be the one to say, "eh, fuck it. See ya."
I've always been someone most people would say tend toward the quiet. It was only sometime in adulthood that my parents finally told me they used to sometimes worry about me because growing up, I spent so much time in my room reading or listening to music or writing in one of my bazillion journals. It was definitely somewhat of a coping mechanism back then but it was (and still is) mainly due to the fact that if I don't have anything to say, I'm not going to say anything. I've always dug my alone time, I've always dug just being quiet, and I can't stand the forced filling of silence.
But my quietness has often been one of those things that makes some people think something is wrong and I've grown so accustomed to that that even when I'm around people who I'm fairly certain understand that isn't the case, I sometimes find myself, after all these years, still apologizing for being quiet.
It happened last night with a friend; one of the people I can be dead silent with and not feel it's an awkward silence. Whether we're talking or not talking, there's a level of comfort there that makes me feel like I don't need to apologize, whether I say a big, fat nothing or I say a big, fat something stupid. He sometimes apologizes for unnecessary things like falling asleep while we're watching television and I usually give him shit about it because it's important to me that he not feel like I expect anything from him other than kindness and respect. It's all I expect from anyone, really and provided those two things are there, I could give a flying fuck what else comes along with it.
But I realized last night just how goddamn second nature it can be to apologize for stupid shit. Hell, I even apologized for suggesting that hanging out at his place is comfier than mine. Which is ridiculous. Mine isn't uncomfortable at all; I love my apartment and I'm always comfortable there and I want whomever else may be in my apartment with me to be comfortable there too. If he isn't and if he hates being there, I'm pretty sure he'd say so and wouldn't have explicitly said otherwise. But much like my apologizing for the silence, my apologizing for that wasn't at all based on any kind of ... well, truth. It's based on absolutely nothing but a possibility. The possibility that I somehow won't live up to some stupid-ass, imaginary, self-imposed standard of 'good enough.'
I'm not uncomfortable with silence and I'm not uncomfortable in my apartment. But I was worried that *he* was uncomfortable with the silence and / or in my apartment, which somehow would have translated to some kind of ... personal fault of mine. Remember when I said a few sentences ago, "which is ridiculous"? Yeah, so is that translation. It's not at all what that translates to and I know that. I also know that the apologizing has become nothing but a habit. Like putting away my dishes so they're alternating colours (purple, orange, purple, orange). Like when I eat M&Ms or Skittles or something with different colours and I separate them into piles with equal amounts of colours in each pile and then I eat ones of the same colour from each pile until they're gone. They're silly little things I do only because I've done them for so long that they've become second-nature.
Those habits aren't bad and I don't give a tiny rat's ass about re-learning how to stack my dishes or how to eat candy like a normal person. But the other one? The other one is a bad habit and one I do not care for. It seems kind of shitty to expect and encourage others to be 100% who they are if I'm not willing to try and do the same, doesn't it?
So, I'm going to be the one to say to that bad habit, "eh, fuck it. See ya." And I'm going to break it. Well, not immediately, of course, because habits take time to break. But I'm going to work on breaking it. Which is, indeed, good enough.
Seems quite appropriate ...
(Ignore the part where the lyrics say, "even when I numb myself" because I'm fairly certain the actual lyrics are, "even when I am not myself.")
