Restless

And for the record, I'm not secretive or an "enigma" (as someone called me recently)...if asked directly, I would answer most things directly.  (I do tend to mull over things forever, still, I'm usually true to who I am, even if it doesn't look that way from the outside.)  All of us are a complicated mix of seeming contradictions, because none of us fit into a box neatly, we are not easily figured out and categorized.  And the only way to know that is to talk to them and listen.  (I think of this both because of having (and failing) to live up to other people's ideals (which may or may not be mine.) And I'm finding that burdensome and constrictive: I am who I am, I can't be who I'm "supposed" to be to fulfill someone else's expectations.  And also because I was thinking about how well-known people get put on pedestals, and then toppled when the "truth" is revealed that they are a normal, complicated, conflicted human being, rather than a super hero or demi god, and therefore not a "good" role model.  Okay, I was specifically thinking of Miley Cyrus, because she made headlines for opposing ideals this week, but could come up with many more, less extreme, examples. Or people who begin to believe their own press and forget that they are human.)

And I slept fitfully, at one point waking up from a dream where I'd made a simple enough request (to borrow a phone card to call my mom) and it somehow got twisted by the other person in the dream to the point where they resorted to name-calling, a name that questioned my character and integrity.  And all it really was, was a request to borrow a phone card to call my mother (because I suddenly had to go in for heart surgery, and I wanted to talk to my parents before that.  I was reading medical stories earlier in the day, got into my dreams, I guess.)  There was no hidden meaning or judgment in my words. 

Anyway, I lay awake thinking, "I can't live a life where I have to be silent.  Never being able to speak my opinion for fear of being misinterpreted or destroyed for having one. Or to have my words twisted to harbor hidden meaning that really isn't there." "I can't/won't live like a cowering dog, waiting to be punished for not living up to someone else's expectations of what I'm supposed to think or be."  "I want to be respected and loved for who I am, right now." (We don't have to agree.) "I want you to really hear me."  "I want you to see me."  (Neither of which are very common anymore. We just make whatever the other person says fit our story of what we want to hear, or how we want to answer.  We make the other person all about us.)  I don't want to spend my life in a muzzle.  A future spent avoiding punishment rather than living is not one I want. 

In the end, this is not about anyone else and what they do (not mine to change, and I'm not meaning to bash anyone), but rather a wake-up call for me about how I want to live, who I want to be.  The dream just made me look at this dynamic when I woke up (and it's not healthy.)

And it's a game-changing thought for me, because I think I actually mean it.