Confessions

I carry people's stories like a traveler with an assortment of parcels.  Every person I talk to, I want to know about.  The things I figure out are then sorted into the cabinets of my mind, each finding its niche and comparing to what I thought of the individual before.  And like these oddly shaped parcels, I carry these stories and these secrets on my own journey.  I try to understand each person as they are, accept each story the way it was told me.

I sometimes sort through these different pieces of people again and again until I feel like I know it forward and backward and could recognize the truth upside down amidst the other notions I get.  Then every time I see a given person, I think of their stories.  I remember the things that most people don't know.  I try to understand them and their actions within the context of these things I found out about them.

I occasionally spend entire days thinking about one person in particular because of something I recently learned about them.  I don't do it to be creepy or obsessive, but that's how I get to know someone.  I don't want to simply have a conglomerate of facts in my mind that I'm supposed to rely on to understand how a person feels and what they do.  I try to piece them together, see how they blend into the individual before me who makes these decisions and thinks these thoughts.

I don't like people's stories so much to distract from myself.  The thing they do for me is give a different perspective on life.  They let me see pieces of the world from a vantage point I may never have considered.  I live vicariously through every story I have ever been told as I reflect on experiences I have never had and emotions I have never felt.

It's easy for me to throw truths down at a blank page.  Where nobody will ever read them and they're only mine to know.  In such a way that they serve only as reflections and not as threats.  But saying them out loud, admitting them to people, that's where I have problems.  Some of the parcels I carry are indeed my own.  They tell stories that nobody has ever heard, the thoughts that I don't want anybody to know I have thought.  Some are momentary, foolish reactions to silly things, others are recurring fears and anxieties that I won't say anything about.

Sometimes I give away a parcel or two of my own to someone who takes the time to listen.  Maybe it's a good thing.  Maybe it's not.  I let people who are practically strangers walk away with some of my most intimate thoughts and nothing more.  It's sometimes easier to part with the truth before people who don't know you that well.  Some truths I don't tell at all.

For those who have ever told me things the rest of the world doesn't know: I'll sit there and I'll wonder.  And sometimes you might see me just looking at you and thinking.  This is how I get to know people.  Not by spending days doing silly things and exchanging chatter about siblings and relatives and minor details but by listening to the things they say that sometimes plague them in the night or the experiences that they can't always admit to but know to hurt.  I want to know not only what everyone sees but also the things that shape it that they don't get to know.  That's why I'm so willing to listen and why I'll occasionally get over my fear of people and actually ask.  I will apologize now in case I push too far.

For those who want the parcels I'm afraid to give: don't expect me to answer right off the top.  I at least need a little bit of time to process it and prepare myself when it feels like I'm being interrogated.  I don't lie intentionally.  I'm just afraid of what happens if I admit to the truth.  Give me time and let me confess to it myself.  I've gotten better about that.  Some answers you may never get from me.  Or maybe that will change in the future and you will.  Either way, there are times when I won't say certain things and it's not because of you.  I will hardly ever admit when I'm scared because of this because it's my own battle and sometimes I'll pretend to be okay and other times I'll pass it off as something else.  That's just the way that situation works.  I'm sorry if that hurts.

I'm sorry that I'm not that open.  I'm sorry that some days I'm too afraid of the truth to tell it to myself not to mention someone else.  I'm sorry that I doubt and fear and wonder because I can't help myself and I'm sorry that I don't tell you because some things I feel like I need to handle by myself.  I'm sorry I'm so bad at this and I'm sorry that I make it hurt.  But that's all I have to confess.