and sometimes i’m joyous and frustrated at the same time

I think it’s like this. I say that I want a clutter-free life, my heart like stone so nothing can stick to it. But that’s not really true at all. What’s true is that I welcome complication, but only when I welcome everything that comes with it. Complication then — clutter, doesn’t factor into the weight of a thing. And it’s the weight of the thing that matters. If the weight is wrong then even a lack of complexity is too much.

Earlier tonight, I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone. She realized, she said, that it’s not about changing, about hiding your flaws, your weaknesses, about being more appealing, more attractive, more what someone would want. It’s not about any of that at all. It’s about finding someone who wants you exactly who you are. Who thinks that what someone else would call your flaws are some of the best things about you.

We say, “be yourself” to someone who is feeling lost and alone in the world, but we don’t explain what that means. It doesn’t mean that being yourself is being the best you that you can be (although that is, in fact, the case). It doesn’t mean that you can’t sustain being someone else (although that is also true). It doesn’t mean that by being yourself, you will be more attractive to more people and make more friends (and it likely doesn’t mean this at all).

Instead, it means that you will be more attractive and make friends with the right kind of people. The people that you don’t have to try to sustain being someone else for. The people who like every last part of you exactly the way you are. Who love that you sing off key to the radio rather than tell you to be quiet. Who get just as absorbed in your rambling tangent as they did the original conversation. Who think that getting lost is just as much an adventure as getting to where you originally planned.

My journal’s turned into an after school special. But fuck it. Freedom isn’t a lack of weight from complication. It’s a lack of weight from trying to be what everyone else wants you to be. How fucking exhausting.

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