Me and Her, She and I, We’re the Same

I’m talking about me and my blog persona. We’re the same person.

I didn’t always feel that way. And, I’m not sure if I’ve changed or my blog persona has changed or something in my perception has changed.

In real life, I always feel like people think I’m better than I am. They think I’m put together and sane and smart. I don’t know why, knowing what we know about our own lives, we so often look at other people and think things are easy for them.

For a while, I felt the same way on this blog. I mean, blogging is personal, but it’s controlled. I tell you way more about myself and my life than I tell most anyone, but I can tell you only what I want you to know. You can’t even see how awkward and distant I am in real life. For that reason, I felt like my blog persona was cooler and more normal than I am. I didn’t feel like you got how shy and insecure and straight-up weird I can be.

I started thinking a lot about what you might think of me. I didn’t want to say anything to make myself look bad. Or when I did, I’d apologize for it. Sometimes I’d do the opposite and yell about how weird I am in order to lower your expectations, so I wouldn’t disappoint you. I wrote a blog I never posted about how I felt like I was starting to censor myself.

Somewhere along the way, I guess I got distracted by other worries. I wrote some very honest blogs (one in particular), and what I heard back is that I’m not the only one facing these issues. I learned what I should have in elementary school: being weird is not weird at all.

And over these last nine months as I’ve become accustomed to writing my ideas and tossing them out into the universe instead of keeping them bottled in my head, I’ve realized that putting yourself out there isn’t so scary either. It is a risk. But, keeping yourself closed off is a risk too–you risk missing out on all the things you want in life.

In my life, I’ve always had a problem with feeling authentic. Somehow I’ve always felt like I was pretending when the thing I wanted most of all was just to feel honest and real. I’ve gone to great lengths to capture that sense of authenticity–to feel genuine. But it’s always eluded me.

But there’s something to this blogging thing. And, for all my reflecting, I don’t really know why I suddenly feel so comfortable being me, and why I feel more at this moment than I ever have before that this girl you’re reading about here really is me.

I don’t think I’ve got this figured out once and for all. The self is elusive and always changing. But it’s nice for now to feel so at home on my blog and among you other bloggers. I feel comfortable, but not in a complacent way. I feel like I have the confidence and the support to push myself and do things I never thought I would. Thank you.

*Incidentally, the title of this blog reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine’s coworker thinks she’s someone named Susie. I’m thinking of when Elaine is talking to Peterman and she says, ” Me and her, have had our problems. She and I have had our problems! You and I, and she and you–” and Peterman says, “ Don’t you drag me into this! This is between you and her, and her.”  If you’re thinking this has nothing to do with anything, then you are right. Wow, two Seinfeld references in two days.