Now, I like being me. I’ve come to appreciate my good qualities, and to accept my socially awkward, geeky, un-trendy, and downright odd ways. Often my outlook’s that other people will just have to deal with me as I truly am.
But, that said…
Sometimes I am acutely aware of my efforts to be someone that those around me will feel comfortable with.
Other times I barely notice the fact that I’m mimicking the vocabulary, the body language, the dress, the overt or subtle outward-appearance aspects of the people who surround me.
I feel like a goddess masquerading as a mortal. Or a child raised by wolves, aping the behavior of the civilized.
I’m an introvert by nature, but sometimes succeed at putting on the outward trappings of a ‘people-person’.
I probably wouldn’t have a decent job without conscious efforts to present myself as more businesslike and conventional than I really am.
I deliberately pick up buzz words, to use when they might impress or help me seem to relate: Full of win. Make it work.
Some circumstances seem to call for me (an opinionated, shrewd, cynical creature) to play the patient underling receiving instruction from elders, or the wide-eyed clueless newbie.
Ah, well. At least for me, and perhaps for many of us, there’s less need (or less desire) to fit in as the years go by. Gradually we find people who accept our eccentricities, and even prize us for our quirks. Yet every now and then (many years post-adolescence) a longing for companionship and affirmation can override the inclination to just be my own weird self.
The Self is such a complex design…
I am my collection of knowledge and skills. I am my code of honor and my stubborn adherence to it.
I am the sum of my own memories, and I exist in the memories of myself that reside in the minds of those who encounter me.
I am the creative brain, the adventurous scaredy-cat heart, the wandering old-ish soul…
I am a balance of individuality and accomodation, constantly in flux.
(I am the cat goddess.)
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