OleopteneA blog for Mara Collins

Reaction Shot

October 25th, 2008

After I hit “send to weblog” on my blog composing window, I have to walk away from the computer, find something else to do, so I don’t start hitting refresh on the stats page, “get new mail” in the email program as if waiting for confirmation from the universe that I exist.

How do I handle my Crazy Mind reaction to comments, getting them, or not getting them, not knowing what it means either way? On the vulnerable days, they mean so much more than I think I ought to let them mean, that I consider not having comments at all, so that I don’t interpret not getting a comment as confirmation of my worst thoughts. On the other hand, the pay-off for being vulnerable that way is that the conversation that sometimes happens in the comments section is the best part of having a blog.

Some of it is, I think, the problem of not being able to see myself clearly. I end up relying on those around me for feedback. I started to say that being unable to see yourself is like the frustration of a movie shot entirely in POV, then it occurred to me that what I am trying to do is more like trying to reconstruct the plot of a movie from a video made of audience reaction, a wave of collective horror, sweeping across faces, followed by some resolution and relaxation, gentle laughter. Well, except for that guy over there squirming uncomfortably trying to figure out a tactful way to tell his date he needs to excuse himself for a minute, dinner isn’t agreeing with him, and that woman there poking at the bottom of her carton of popcorn, clearly miffed that whomever it is she was sharing the popcorn with mindlessly ate more than a fair share. Oh, and him! He’s trying to surreptitiously check text messages on his phone.

Maybe I mentioned before? I think I understand how I work but that hasn’t translated into being able to read others? I used to wish I could be mysterious and cool, with everyone trying to guess what I am thinking and feeling, or I’d have settled for inscrutable, even, and instead I have this sense that I am not only utterly transparent, but that I broadcast my feelings so clearly that people blocks away pretty much know what is going on with me. On the other hand, I think I often need a bit of processing time before I can talk about my feelings, I have to have a chance to accept those feelings and trace out implications and then, maybe, when the words are in my head I can start to have a conversation.

I loved when a friend described her son as coming home from school and explaining that he just needed to watch television a little because he had had too much time looking at faces that day — yes! I know exactly what that feels like, and I think this is how my parents would describe me as far back as after a day of preschool, even if I could never put it quite so eloquently. In fact, I think this ancient horrible feeling of having to work so hard to decode the non-verbal language going on in social situations combined with this feeling of transparency to constitute this introverted condition of just wanting some time off from faces. For how many years was the wish I was unable to articulate that I could somehow control how people perceived me!

Maybe there is something to the idea of risk and pay-off. Even in writing, I don’t have control about how I am perceived. But the tension between being hungry for attention and the hot-cheeked desire for invisibility finally lands with knowing that trust is its own reward. Trying to put enough of myself into the truest words I can, I find that I can hold this fragment just far enough out that, by straining my neck and twisting my head, I can catch a glimpse of who I am at this moment. And putting myself out there has again and again given me the confirmation I need, even if it’s not from anywhere I might have expected it, that I am not alone.

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