I'm a hard man to get to know, that's what a lot of the people I've been acquainted with or called friends have said to me at least one time or another. Mostly its because I'm a fiercely private person. I guard my personal life, my secrets, with a sort of iron fisted determination it borders on an obsession. I could blame it on my mother's side of the family, they are the greatest secret keepers I know of, but really...how much can you play the nature vs nurture debate in who and what you are? I'm the quiet sort, I'd rather listen than talk, and generally keep to myself. I think a girl in high school once called me "Dark and dreary Dray" which is kind of fitting. Not that I don't have my reasons to be this way, I've been burned before in the past by people using my history against me, so I simply don't talk about it. Don't let anyone know about it that I don't deem 'safe' or 'trustworthy'. But this practice in and of itself has it's draw backs.
For instance this obsession with keeping myself safe by keeping everyone at arms length has been the down fall in more than a few of my relationships, romantic or otherwise. I think people have an innate need to know about things they don't have knowledge of and I strive ever so hard to be a mystery to the world around me. I think a friend of mine once said I was crazy for doing that, that I'd push my current girl friend away due to not sharing enough of myself with her. I just shrugged it off and kept going about my business as I normally would but, in the end, it turned out he was right. It baffles me really, if someone doesn't offer information up I don't press hard about it, why should they do the same with me? But I know people don't, can't, work that way; at least on an intellectual level. But here I am, still hording my 'secrets' and keeping everyone at arms length.
It wasn't until my last relationship ended, with my meager belongings packed neatly and carefully in a box next to the bed I'd slept in for three years and a tear streaked face telling me I had to go, that I gave serious reconsideration to coming out of hiding. I had to show my real face to the world and try to understand that even if I do get hurt again not everyone is going to try to burn me like that single event that triggered this self imposed exile from humanity.
It's just a shame I couldn't have realized it sooner.
I'm prejudiced against pieces that only exist in the writer's mind and that don't offer a story or a visual to the reader. Here's where I perked up and admired the writing: "It wasn't until my last relationship ended, with my meager belongings packed neatly and carefully in a box next to the bed I'd slept in for three years and a tear streaked face telling me I had to go, that I gave serious reconsideration to coming out of hiding. "
ReplyDeleteThe first visual in the piece!
I have a penssion for writing out the inner voice for a build up some times. Like how you watch a person obviously go throug ha mental process then make a choice, then act and you wonder what they were thinking, why the result? I guess that's where I was going with the lead up.
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