People watching when the person is you - project me day 468

I love people watching. I think there is a part of us that finds it curious in our own little way and not many can go without admitting that they do a little of it. I'm not sure how many people can say they have days where their people watching is a very personal experience.

I had to wait a few hours for the morning brain to wake up before explaining the curiousness of yesterdays experience with me. I literally spent the day watching myself. It wasn't planned. I didn't wake up and say 'today I shall watch me'. I think it began as a coping mechanism considering I woke up to no electricity, a frantic phone call, a demanding phone call and then had the person I needed to speak to not answer their call.

I have started to notice something about people's impression of me and it's been weighing terribly on how I express myself to the world. If I'm not careful it's going to be detrimental and I'm going to forget how far I have come in 'project me'. It's been a long journey of getting to know me and liking every part of my personality and now that I express it, I don't quite understand why people are getting me so wrong.
Yes, I will always be passionate and expressive in my communication but the world seems to see it as me not coping or being ... dramatic. Now there's a good dramatic and the falling apart bad kind and I'm certain that I fall into the first?category. So then why do I get told to 'calm down' or 'keep the faith'. Those are built in mechanisms with me ... but what if I'm pulling the wool over my own eyes?

So I watched. I watched the reactions of everyone around me and I watched how I handled a number of stressful and complicated conversations and choices.

I kept calm. I was the one who everyone turned to to hear the facts, hear the truth, make the plans and hold everything together. That's a strength that I'm proud of, but when the phones goes down from the 8th call to the same people I do throw my hands in the air, flop onto the couch, demand that someone makes me tea and do a brilliant rendition of some 1940 actress ... yet inside it's unwavering.

Well, sort of unwavering ... there went the whole day with calm and great confidence until it all fell to pieces in one fleeting moment. Of course it has to do with a boy and I do insert a very big *sigh* here. For months on end The Jock and myself have worked on this friendship after our months of a whole lot of 'fun' but with some people chemistry just never goes away. He's moved on and I've made my choice to move on too ... you know where this is going right? Well how could you seeing as though I didn't know until the very last second. Damn, I was doing so well. I set those little boundaries in place and focused on the friendship and I was almost as the home stretch ... he was in his car and about to drive away, I was about to close the door ... and it happened. The simple peck on the cheek 'good bye' kiss turned into a snog. Yep, I watched that too ... I did want to clonk myself on the head afterwards and I had a moment of being super pissed off at myself and truly throwing myself on the couch with a dramatic *sigh*, but that eventually passed and I reminded myself that sometimes I'm a girl with far too many rules ... but I'm also a girl who only puts those rules into place when I know what I deserve.

So swaying from moments of absolute power to absolute weakness was an interesting ride. I can't explain what it did, but it did something very profound to be a spectator in my own day. It put so much of me into perspective and I think it's the first 'project me' step in realising that I don't have to change anything in myself, but I don't have to explain or defend myself either.

You should try it some time ...