“You’re a bit much.”
“Weirdo.”
“You’re… a lot.”
“Queen of Resting Bitch Face”
“Your intensity is alarming to me.”
“Sweet soul, don’t you dare run away because they find you strange, and deep, and too real. Keep on being who you are. The world needs your strangeness, your depth, and your realness.”
The first five quotes have all been said to me. The last one I found on my own. If these hit for you, you’re in the right place.
All of my life, I’ve practiced holding myself back and mitigating what I present to the world. And still I’ve heard all those phrases—one of them from my own mother. But it’s a new era, and this is not a time to hold back. This is a time to talk about all the parts of me. To embrace my quirky mosaic as worthy of presentation, just as it is.
In doing so, I hope to encourage you to embrace all the parts of you. To stop feeling shame for what you want, what you need, and what you love.
This newsletter will be formatted as a personal essay with thematic questions at the end. Use them however feels right for you: journaling, discussions, reflections, or fodder to drop a comment on the post. (Highly encouraged!) But in sharing me, I hope to help you think about your own journey.
So let’s begin.
I hate people but can't stop caring about what they think.
I'm a cynical optimist.