well that’s obvious

i’m not transparent.

oddly enough, i have just begun to realize this.

i’ve always thought i was the most obvious person in the world. well, almost. i have a friend who can pretty much never lie because her face is always honest about what she feels or thinks, regardless of what she says. that’s a great thing.

i’m not like that.

i guess i assume people can and do read my mind. i’ll make a joke or posit a pun and wait for people to supply the punchline. i usually always think the answer is obvious, and sometimes people do get it right away. other times i realize my brain is off on some wavelength of obscurity. that’s okay; jokes shouldn’t be completely obvious.

then there’s the realm of emotions, opinions, feelings. this is where it gets tricky.

maybe i live inside of my mind so much that i assume everything i think registers on my face or in my actions. i can hear my thoughts flying about, so i think other people must somehow be able to as well. because i assume i am obvious and that everything i think or feel is on display somehow, i counterbalance to cover up what i feel i’m spilling. consequently i do some odd things from time to time (not odd as in skipping up and down flapping my arms like they’re bird wings … which i do not infrequently). odd as in being unduly timid, tentative, reserved or crotchety.

this has less to do with being obvious and more to do with counterbalancing, but i don’t really talk to people about emotions. i like to talk about things that make me happy; i don’t tend to share specific things that make me sad or angry or hurt. every once in a while i might, but God is usually the only one besides my own heart and mind that knows those things. my mom recently helped me realize this is not a good idea, and that it can actually do a lot more harm than whatever good i think i’m doing by “not bothering people.”

i feel like i over-share things, give people too much information, or talk far too much about myself. i also like people to like me … except for those times when i don’t have any energy to devote to people and just want them all to go away for a while. it’s easier for me to think about things that have hurt or upset or confused me rather than try to explain those to someone else. my words don’t always line up right off the bat.

essentially, if you lost track of where this wandering ramble was going, i assume people can tell everything i’m thinking, so i don’t tell them much at all (there are exceptions, of course, especially when considering time, location and surrounding company.)

so now i’m learning to actually explain to other people how i feel about things. in some cases that is easy, and in others it’s really hard. i wish it worked so that people would ask me direct questions about things and i could give them direct, yes or no answers. here i thought i was transparent, but i was actually more opaque. becoming translucent, as a happy medium, requires talking and speaking up.

oh how i need to learn to do that.