THINGS I'D RATHER NOT TELL YOU

I was thinking the other day about things I typically don’t let people know. I’m not withholding some kind of ‘deep dark secret’ , but I AM withholding, and often don’t reveal certain things about myself.  You may not care about these things, and you may find them meaningless or amusing, but to me, I unconsciously and automatically skip over certain things about myself.  Things that reveal how sensitive I am, or about  how much I enjoy being ‘domestic’…

I don’t tell people that in High School I won the Betty Crocker Future Homemaker of America award…but I did. When you see those posts and articles about the 110 shortcuts for our home, I promise you, I know most of them. I love to cook and I'm really good at it. Not the 'Martha perfection in place-mats' kind of thing- but the food is love on a plate kind of thing.

I am a gatherer and compiler of information. I hate ‘real’ puzzles- the kind out of a box, but I love the puzzles in which words, thoughts, ideas  can be combined and recombined to make new things happen, or to solve old problems in new ways. Love that. 

I don’t admit what a soft touch I can be. I protect myself from myself by putting policies into place  to get paid on time,  and keep people that I might allow to take advantage of me at a distance.  I cry at the movies…hell, sometimes I even cry during a TV commercial.

Yes I can be tough as nails when I’m coaching, and people mistake my ability to be a warrior on behalf of the being that’s being bullied by the mind, for the person I am in the rest of my life. Growing up I denied and suppressed all things ‘feminine’, wanting and needing to be strong, mistaking strength for a kind of masculine stoicism, all the while refusing to do things for myself as simple as buying good hair conditioner.  I have had some Very Bad Hair years. (Yes, years)

I eventually woke up and started admitting the deep longing I had for softness, for ‘girl’ things, for stuffed animals and beautiful pictures of nature. I started taking pictures, and yes I do have a small collection of stuffed animals.

My bedroom is pink. There, I said it. My bedroom is pink and I really like sparkly things. I’m a sucker for sparkly nail polish and things that catch the light. When my mother was buried, it was the first time I ever saw her wearing nail polish. Somebody said, “She never had time for that.” , and I decided to always wear nail polish from that point forward, to remind myself what it cost my mother to put herself last, and to honor her memory with this small nearly invisible gesture. I still polish my nails. As I type these words I’m wearing pink glittery nail polish. And I’m enjoying the way the sunlight shimmers across my nails as I type.

I’m an introvert. No, really. Yes I do know I do workshops and lectures and have a big mouth. But in a crowded room of people I do not know, I’m the one observing, rarely the one being social and interacting. I just don’t enjoy small talk. I prefer not to talk unless I have something to say, and I find most of the typical getting-to-know-you type of social interactions are mostly bullshit substituting for real conversation.

I’m a geek. I never realized just how much of geek I am until some years ago, when I was regularly invited to a friend’s home who routinely gathered a group of  fascinating people including authors, remote viewers, scientists, astronauts,  physicists  …and me. It never occurred to me that I was the ‘odd woman out’ because I was able to hold wonderful rich conversations with these people. I was surprised by how much I knew by just reading, researching and putting things together on my own.  I was definitely not the ‘observer’ in the background in those gatherings. I asked questions, I gave opinions, and I found myself really feeling at home with people for the first time in my adult life.

Well, these are a few of the things I generally don’t offer up in conversation, though anyone who really knows me, knows all these plus far more.

I encourage you to share even your semi-secrets, the ones that make you a little squirmy, the ones that make you think   “Oh NO, what if everyone knew THAT about me”…because without revealing your deep self, no has the opportunity to actually know you.  Not that I’m suggesting you go around telling everyone, but that you for sure tell everyone close to you and anyone that you would like to be close to. Honesty is the water that intimacy thrives in.