It’s been hard for me to post here recently, because the old story of “you don’t have anything positive or inspirational to say” has been rolling around in my brain. Has this ever happened to you?
Since I started this blog mostly as a positive feelings/thoughts blog, I now feel an intense pressure to keep on that track–to be what others want, or what I think they want based on my observations. From what I can tell, both on the Internet and in real life, people gravitate toward “positive” people, those who just seem full of sunbeams no matter what they’re going through…so I have tried my best to be that (or at least keep up that image) for most of my adult life.
The problem? I am just not a “sunbeams” kind of person, at least not much of the time. My emotional weather is more like the old joke about North Carolina’s weather: “if you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes!” Moods come and go like wind and clouds overhead; what started as a pretty day can spawn tornadoes in the afternoon, and what started as yucky and stormy can turn off unexpectedly gorgeous by midday, and then go back to rain later in the evening. And I feel all these shifts intensely, so they’re downright impossible to ignore no matter my best intentions. If I try to numb myself to them, I’m just numb, cold, and unresponsive in total–I’ve tried.
So for me, positivity is at best a mask, worn to impress and inspire others. But it’s a stifling existence living with a false face, even for what is ostensibly a good purpose. Positivity, especially the constant kind touted by pop culture, is EXHAUSTING. There’s no room for real talk, no space to breathe…and when you take off the mask, no one recognizes you, because they got used to the fake you, the smiley happy never-needs-anything you. If you’re like me and have worn the mask too long, you lose friends when you take it off, because they no longer know you.
Going “naked” without my masks of positivity and “got it together-ness” is terrifying, because those masks can also be called “adulting,” and without them I’m a raw child, my skin too sensitive to the sun and others’ opinions. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever become a real adult, one who does not need masks and pretenses to survive, one who can live happily yet truthfully and be accepted for who they are. …Maybe I’m not the only one who wonders.
turning toward day 