things learned and remembered on a dreamy Monday morning

I remind myself of Jekyll and Hyde sometimes. One side of my face is photographable, the other is not. I put myself to the left of people when I see a camera pulled out, always, and I find myself turning my head ever so slightly to the right so the lens catches more of the left side than the other. 

Some days I'm sweet, friendly, and some days I'll tell the truth even if you can't take it just because I think you need it. Some days I'll do both. Some days I don't know what I will do either, what I will say, until I say it. I don't find out until I have a conversation, and the words flow out of my mouth, lacking my permission, escaping from the cage in which my brain has tried to lock them. Some days I'm better at keeping them in than others. You could be showered with Southern hospitality, or I could make you avoid me for the rest of the day. 

There's the first me, the left side. The wild me, could be sweet or honest or both, but has unleashed herself on the world, thoughts spewing like lava, no restrictions, no cares, no fear. I wish I could be her more often. I like to see the reaction on friends' and stranger's faces when I am her, when she comes out of nowhere. They're either fearful, taken aback, or amused. Usually the amused are the ones that have seen her before and know that's actually me, that's actually what's in my head, and for some reason I've chosen to be her that day and they're in for a good ride.

But I'm usually the second, the right side. I'm like the first, but strapped in like a tandem skydiver, padded down like a fragile vase in a move, lips locked with a key thrown away. I protect myself, steel myself up, because I'm tender and easy to get to in my other state. A sly word, a hurtful word, spoken in my direction and I clam up, unable to return the favor. I'm incapable of hurting others. The truth hurts, yes, but that's not my fault. Everyone has their own version of a truth I suppose, but I feel the more versions of it you hear, the closer you come to The truth. Maybe that's silly, I don't know, but it makes sense to me.

Neither side of me knows how to debate, though. I'm empathic with everyone and every side, I consider all the options. I'm not easily swayed unless you present to me a view I hadn't considered. I'm open to change in those situations, but usually I just weave the new into the old, allowing it room to move around in my head and push out old notions, alter some, but mostly just exist to the side. It's tiring. I can't be blind, I can't be ignorant, therefore I can't be at peace. Everything to me has worldly implications, everything is connected to something else. My life has meaning because it's connected to others, and those are further connected to everything else. Everything I do makes a difference to you. Everything you do makes a difference to me.

Reeling back in... This weekend was warm and full of new life. I chose to be my true self on Saturday and lived. Screaming at a baseball game, laughing as we piled seven people in a pick-up, dancing in the street. My parents adopted a new dog and I helped pick her out. Last night, I cried before dinner, out with friends, over a stray puppy, starving in the dirt, dying for love. People passed by and say "oh, what a sweet dog, how sad it is that she's alone" and kept going, back to their cars, back to their boxed in lives. How? What is it in people, what evil, allows us to see a suffering creature and move on by? Why are we so apathetic? 

After my small rant, I stood up, walked outside to get her, take her home, get a good meal in her and find her a permanent home, when a young couple who had just eaten picked her up themselves. Oh, I forgot, I thought, and I smiled at them and returned.  Some people do care. Some people are like me. They don't know me, but that choice to help when help was needed affected me more than I remembered possible, and I was a bit shocked by it. We all have two sides, we all have choices to be made. We can be our true selves, come out of our shells and live our lives, connected and open to everyone else, or we can stay holed up in our own cocoons, forgetting how much our actions or inactions can hurt and maim without our permission or knowledge. I'm choosing to try to push myself out there, to live a life examined and whole, without fear, to be myself from now on.