I am constantly fighting a lot of mental obstacles while trying to get anything out on paper (or on a screen in this case). I am very judgemental about what is written, even if it is just for me. I like my thoughts safe and tucked away in my mind, who would’ve guessed. Well, turns out if my thoughts end up on paper it would make them real, and scary. This is because being honest and real on paper truly reveals all of my insecurities and lays them out in front of me.. my biggest one being my intelligence. I’ve held onto trying to seem smart ever since I felt doubted for my intelligence in 5th grade after transferring schools.

I came from a private school and felt so clueless about how to navigate a public school setting. I felt I lost not only my common sense but my book smarts, as I studied slightly different things than my peers. I did not know what they were calling out in class and I felt it hard to follow along with everyone else. Though I was just a child, I remember being suddenly so aware about how I present myself. I was self conscious. I felt constantly belittled by my teachers and peers, a feeling that is hard to forget. Fast forward to now and I’ve almost killed myself defending what I felt like was my “intelligence” by fighting for every little thing in my academic/ professional life, even things that are out of my control.

Though I may be sounding too vague, I still hope someone knows what I am talking about. Anyways, the roots of the thoughts going through my mind lately is how difficult it is to write out the things that are going on in my life that don’t involve actions or explicit words. I am constantly figuring out a way to understand and bring words to the pauses between sentences occurring not only within myself but between other people. That communication is an aspect in all human beings that we do almost reflexively. I have realized how these reflexive tendencies manifest and show themselves communicate not only our own humanness but it also reflects how society shapes the mind. Maybe I am weird for staring at people in conversation and noticing these patterns among people. But, I can’t not notice it and honestly I need to write about it before I explode as it makes me fucking uncomfortable most of the time (in different ways).

Don’t you just get that feeling sometimes where you just want to scream about the “elephant in the room” during a conversation. A conversation where everything is supposed to be subtle but you just want to address the obvious. What are the situations that it is appropriate to let these nonverbal cues go, leave them as nonverbal, or address them? Does the communication that lies between sentences have to govern that much of our daily interactions? I would personally like to address them head on all the time but I also understand not everyone rolls like that.

Through all this thinking and going back and forth between why I stop myself from writing, to my childhood, to why I can’t come up with the words to write is that I need practice. I have been hard on myself every day since 5th grade but when is it going to stop? I have to start something to be good at it, or to fail, or to realize I love it, or I hate it…. I have to try. I do get overwhelmed often and I feel like I have to be perfect at everything, but I am trying to accept that I will be fine without being perfect. So I am going to try and just write what I want.. not things filtered so heavily by my ego.

Sincerely,

Finally ready to fail?? I think….