I know one or two friends that I can trust to be completely honest with me.
I mean truly and really without filter or consequence honest. It's rare. Like asking someone to hold up a mirror, Or light you on fire……for just a moment.
there is a distinct sensation connected to the truth. sometimes I am not even aware that it wasn't there until this sensation arrives in my body. I can not see truth, I can not hear it or taste it or even smell it, but I can indeed feel the truth. I can feel it on my skin and in my bones and somewhere far beneath or above that calls up a song of purpose in my soul like the whisperings of ancestors from far away or, so so close. It has become a habit of mine to focus on from time to time, and this curious fever never fails to surprise me with its irregularity and randomness. The truth is not a frequent guest on an average day.
Most of the time the truth is decorated, adorned or bejeweled and served with a silvery tongue to escape any harsh reality. It often is padded, shrouded in thick cottony swaths of puffy fluff when avoidance is the golden Goddess tempting the current palate. I have seen it abandoned, discarded altogether for the sake of convenience or just because people save it for a rainy day, like saving the best for last. Sometimes the truth is only for certain individuals where everyone else gets the scraps. I have had the scraps many times though I never let on I knew. I never do.
I used to save the best part of all my treats for last. I would nibble around the cookie or goodie eating away all the flavorless or boring parts until all that remained was the best, most chewy, or sweetest bit. I thought I was savoring it, but when it came time to finally enjoy the goodness it was too little too late. I see the truth being handled that way, like a delicacy only suitable for certain times and places like Oysters on New years eve in Paris or orange juice in the morning.
I suppose the truth is relative to perception like everything else, so its easy to hide behind our fears or beliefs. Sometimes the truth belongs to someone else and it was just given to us but it is not the truth at all. Or maybe its just easier to believe the bad stuff….
I don't have a huge amount of friends. I never knew how to stay connected with people. That kind of behavior was never modeled for me. There was no value in community and it was kind of an " every girl for herself" world out there for as far back as I can remember. But it was survival, and I don't regret it because I have grown to be very strong and the pain of this world needs me to be strong. I have a few acquaintances but I am not very good with that kind of relationship even now with social media making acquaintanceship more accessible than practically anything. I find them easily detachable but then again I have always held my anchors up in shallow water. I depend on a few very simple and honest friendships to keep me feeling connected, loved and thriving.
Also, I really need to be alone a lot of the time. Its just a thing with me. It actually took me a long time to discover that about myself but now that I finally understand some of the things that I need as a woman, I don't hesitate to give those things to myself. I've stopped waiting for some one else to do it. When I spend a lot of time around other people, I absorb so much information and stimulus from them that it makes my entire body literally vibrate. I can feel a lot more than the truth in most situations and it can be exhausting. I usually avoid eye contact to ease the intensity but My attention goes where the energy is highest involuntarily. If I choose, and sometimes when I don't I can focus very deeply on a person and empathize with their experience in a very short amount of time. Sometimes it happens from a great distance. Not always, but usually if I am looking at you I am feeling what you are feeling. When there are many people gathered together it can get very intense. Its almost as though there is a storm of emotions and feelings going on under the surface just behind my brown eyes and I need time alone to let the waves recede. I need to calm the thoughts in my own head let alone still the excess emotion that I seem to pick up like pollen. So I go to nature where I am most at ease or just to my own little corner to be with just me. Just for a short while,... to recharge.
But that doesn't mean that I am unkind or unfriendly. It doesn't mean that I would not gladly sit and listen for hours to your process or smile at your laughing eyes when you fall in love again and again. It doesn't mean I don't want to bring you soup and horror films when you are sick or let you hold me and comfort me when I am feeling lost. It doesn't mean that I do not need you. I do.
You see, I am not aloof. That is not the truth even though it appears that way, and I have been told that, by the honest ones. I know that it does present that way but it is not so. There is no regal dismissal behind my eyes. Only a little fear, an ebbing self doubt and maybe a dash of guarded soldier left over from my days as a shadow boxer. We all have our own truth to live with. I am becoming enamored with my own for the first time. I am honest with myself, and if you ever ask me, I WILL tell you the truth.
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