Privacy

 My mother caught me a bit off-guard when she told me I had always been a “private person”.

This comment was not rude or hurtful. It wasn’t even inaccurate. It simply caught me because I had completely forgotten that being private was such an enormous part of my personality. 

Privacy was a glaringly obvious trait of mine when I was younger, but that was back when I had only lived so long and only collected/decided on so many traits. There were less to keep track of and less to take up the finite amount of space. Ergo the qualities that I did have were massive (as they anxiously awaited better company).

I did three things and was obvious about it.

(On the offchance you’re interested: 1. Keep things private 2. obsess 3. panic.)

On my journey, I had forgotten that piece of myself. I watched on as it was slowly dwarfed by the newcomers. (Picture big, clunky football players shuffling their way into a small room: “Excuse me, e-excuse me, oop! Sorry ‘bout that, little guy. Excuse me…”.)

My mother then speculated: “So strange. I wonder why you are that way.”

Now that we’ve had the ridiculously long set-up for no reason whatsoever: All of this got me thinking; how did I end up this way?

Obviously I can only hypothesize as to how my own attributes came to be, let alone another’s. But I think it’s interesting to ponder and fun to type out and if you don’t know this by now then I just don’t know what to tell you.

If I had to suppose, I would say my fight for privacy likely sprung from when I was younger (when do these things not?). I had a hovering, suspicious mother, a teasing, nosy sister and a father who thought it more polite to not talk. This very likely resulted in not wanting to say anything (so it wouldn’t be used against me by the sis), not getting the chance to (when my mother found it out from my diary) and finally thinking it just as well (because at least my father wouldn’t mistake me for being impolite).

I wasn’t interested in socializing, which is just as well considering I was so crap at it. When I did socialize it was all too stressful and my defense mechanism just so happens to be shutting down. It all came together in a truly magnificently unhealthy cocktail for a growing frontal lobe. 

On the few occasions I managed to share an iota of myself, others might judge or tease or use said iota against me (only the truly criminal were able to acheive such feats with such little material). Was I too sensitive? Arguably so. And even as my skin thickened and I cared less about others’ opinions of me, I still kept to myself. I find it so irritating when others are so quick to expose (what I would argue is) the worst of themselves in the interest of getting a shot in / making themselves feel better about their own insecurities. I’d just as soon not deal with it. 

And who cares about my news, really? Who is genuinely interested in what I have to say, purely just to hear it? I’m sure I don’t know, but after years of the self-important interrupting my words, the odds appeared to be against me. Which is perfectly fine (don’t cry for me, Argentina) as I, too, am uninterested in some peoples’ stories. What’s fair is fair. 

This is also just as well as I - for reasons I will not bother to speculate, as this blog is already unlawfully long and very much about nothing - also find it irritating when I am being grilled. When it feels like someone is just digging into me for their next scoop to the Morning Gazette. Although I have to wonder if I would still feel this way if I had felt like people genuinely and generally cared about what I had to say. Hm.

I can't help but also find it odd that, despite all of my mouth-shutting, I certainly am one to have too-open a trap and say things others may not feel comfortable saying. Or hearing, depending. It's strange being private while simultaneously being completely genuine and honest. Anyway, I guess that’s about all I can ponder on this at the moment. Glad to be blogging again. Til next time.