i'm a witty human, and i (like most people, i assume) make jokes for myself all of the time. some of them are silly and/or not particularly nice, and i most often hear them in my head (and out loud on the phone to the people who really know me) in a slightly combative sounding deadpan, a real wise woman who's seen the ways of the world. like, a woman who understands that you can truly know your place in the world by visiting a publix. a woman who wanted to put "don't be sick all of the time" and "don't have creepy secret relationships" down for annual goals. a woman who is fully willing to acknowledge that when your cat almost burns down the house with a hitachi magic wand, you are no longer allowed to live alone. and so forth.
i gotta tell you friends and neighbors, this gal entertains me. but, she is also crass and cynical and doesn't actually represent how i would want to come across to the public at large or to people who do not understand the context of my personality. she's my scathing better half, my wicked lady, and be it with a grimace or a grin, she's got a perspective. and i do believe, after a lot of reflection, that she should have more of a public voice. problematically, she'd out all my dirty laundry, and I try not to publicly slam myself (enough people will do that for you), but as you might imagine, the butt of her insightful (biting) observations is most often me.
dear sweet germaine. me who plays as nicely as possibly. me who avoids the conflict in favor of assisting with the resolution. me who is sweet and chaste (lord). me who somehow feels the need to apologize a lot, all of the time. so in fact this wicked lady is essential, because she keeps me real, keeps me honest, keeps me from evaporating into a fine mist of obliviated haze. perhaps most importantly, she helps me know when it's time to stop taking other people's shit.
i guess my main conflict with publicly sharing more of this side of my personality is that it does not reflect the amount of charity that i strive to cultivate in my heart. in all situations, i try to remember that everyone is coming from somewhere and that we are all striving to meet the same basic needs with varying levels of damage. she might help me maintain boundaries, but my witty defender does not always embrace compassion, forgiveness, and love.
i decided to post this to my blog instead of as a facebook status when it grew to a certain length. when i logged in and read the most recent entry (11/12/12), imagine my wry amusement to find that though i don't have any recollection of writing that post, it is about essentially the same thing. private vs. public, etc. i spent a looooong time at http://www.zaporacle.com/ reading lots of thoughtful insights, mostly about integrating the parts of your personality and finding peace within instead of seeking it from without, something that is also very important to me at this time in my life.
so, i believe for me the year 2013 will be about integration. the first hard resolution i made for myself was that i wanted to audit my belongings and maintain a list of all the items that i owned. to take concrete, specific, mindful responsibility for my existence in the material world. instead of a sprawl of random clutter, expanding to fill a seemingly infinite space, it will be a collection of useful or treasured objects, in a small space, that i will keep comfortably neat and clean. i think part of me has been afraid to really face the real world, accept other humans as intimates, etc, because of how disjointed and unanchored i feel within my own psyche, and the chaos of my surroundings is closely intertwined with this state of being (and in assuming my mother's identity, almost IDENTICALLY, but that is a WHOLE other post in itself). and maybe, in the process, i'll find ways to resolve my "conflicting" selves into one whole, successful self, and find a balance between cynical and world weary, pristine and unfailingly kind.
