So, I was driving to work today, coincidentally enough, thinking about writing this blog, and I nearly sideswiped another car (which just goes to show how deeply I think about these blogs before I send them out to you in the world-so, respect.) Now, of course, the other driver cussed me out and deservedly so, and I would have done the same. But it occurred to me that that person was from then on going to have not only a terrible morning, but an erroneous idea of who I was. Unless you're the sweetest person on earth, you know that road rage makes you think the worst of humanity, and so do lots of other things- the person who cuts you off at the grocery line, who's rude to you at the corner sandwich shop- the list goes on and on. But these little snippets of a person's personality that we get (in my case, they didn't even get to see) are like, like the many layers of Martin Lawrence's fat suit in his movies (which one?- ALL of them). They're there, but they're not all that's there, and you have to peel through the layers to get to the kernel and find out if there's anything there worthwhile (that's a lot of theres!). I often feel like the people around me don't know the real me- that they know my circumstances, and think that they're all that defines me. I am someone's daughter, sister, friend- and I have certain behaviors for each of these that other people who don't see me in that light would find astonishing. I'm sure my mother would be surprised (at the least) if she knew some of the things I discussed with my friends, and my friends would be surprised if they knew what it is I do exactly as a job (no one really thinks I'm very responsible in any of my relationships), and I.. I just let people think what they think because their first impression isn't going to change. A science fiction truism is that psychics don't exist in great numbers because they couldn't deal with the multiple pyschoses people carry about in their heads... (another is that people in scifi novels almost always have a hate on for psychics and invariably end up killing them to protect their own [sometimes measly and sometimes grisly] secrets- not great options for building a race of super humans.) At any rate, I felt bad for cutting someone off, and wished they could see into my head to know I was sorry, but knew they never would. So one more version of me (the idiot female driver one) is out there in someone's head, but it's not the real me. Being fully known is one of my greatest fears and greatest desires- I want to pull off my own fat suit (the real one too) and stand in front of the world, someday- but for now I'll hide behind my glasses and wait for someone who is psychic or just really really patient to find the best version of me, the absolutely amazing one, and pull me out of the shadows. Who knows, it could even be me.
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
~Henry Van Dyke, The Prison and the Angel
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