Thoughts of a person who loves when you’re yourself.
Journal entry #2: Private Thoughts from a Public Dump
I could watch people all day.
If you’re my friend, you probably have heard me say I’m a people person.
I love people- not in an emotional sense, but more in a fascinating manner. I love observing people and learning from them.
What makes them tick?
What gets them in high spirits?
What differentiates them from the next person?
Why do they act the way they do? And most importantly;
Who are they?
If you spend a lot of time listening to people, rather than engaging them in conversations like I do, you will get to see people outside of the way they want to be seen. The way they are.
It’s like boiling water bubbling under a closed lid- always attempting to escape. Eventually, it always seeps out. Those are my favourite parts of silent conversations- watching the vapour of a person’s true personality seep out in moments of heightened emotions.
I watch my friend, Bread talk about her future and all of the things she wants to become, and for a moment there I don’t see the career-minded efficient Bread. She’s completely gone, and in her stead is a lady working to get control of her life.
She turns to ask me why I’m not talking.
I tell her I’m absorbing all of the things she’s saying. In reality, I’m not. It’s her soul talking and my spirit seeing my friend for who she truly is.
Sometimes, I wonder if my friends see me that way too. If there are moments my magnificent self-projections get distorted for a slight second and I’m exposed. I bet that happens, cos sometimes I have my friends do things only my silent self begs for.
In that way, I know they see me, but not in the way that I see people. The difference is that I’m always looking to see, but most people just catch a glimpse.
So, my favourite thing about people has become seeing them in their elements- unfettered, unbound, unashamed- real. It’s a sight to behold.
You should see my friend, Ankle when she’s not worried. She’s an open excited book and cackles like an evil baby amidst speech as she chatters about the things her insane mind adores. I could listen to that crackhead talk all day when she’s on a ‘realness high’
My other friend, Chief is a bother when he’s in his element. His energy is like clenched fingers tightened around my neck as he pours all of his excitement down my throat like healthy poison. Halfway through hoping he would shut up, I just smile to myself and think, I hope your crazy ideas work someday.
My girlfriend. She’s the cutest baby demon when she’s in her real state. You just want to wrap her in your arms and pet her while she pulls at the last strings of your life. It’s a compromise I’ve come to terms with. After all, to live is to die consciously, and to love is to compromise hatred.
I wish people could be that way all of the time.
Not ashamed to be seen differently from how the world say they should appear
Not afraid to live in a world of their own
Not bound to the shackles of the requirements for staying alive.
But life requires us all to stay alive to live it, so instead of ‘live our lives’, we live to stay alive. Somewhere in that confusing statement, we lose ourselves.
Maybe God gave me the gift of true sight to see and appreciate the moments of beauty we do not take note of, or maybe I’m just a peeping tom who captures naked views of people wrapped in thick clothing.
Whichever one it is, I’m just glad I get to see people and I hope you get to let yourself out more
E go be.
Henry
P.S.: No real names were used in this write-up, except mine. My name is Henry
