{"id":2367,"date":"2013-11-23T06:10:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T14:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2013-11-22T21:52:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T05:52:32","slug":"pay-it-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2367","title":{"rendered":"Be true to your school. Or yourself. Whatever."},"content":{"rendered":"

I try so hard just to be myself
\nbut I keep on fading away.
\n–Elvis Costello\/Pay It Back<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This above all: to thine own self be true
\n–William Shakespeare\/Hamlet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems like it’s a fairly universal fact of being a teenager and young adult: \u00a0we all do a lot of playacting when we’re young. \u00a0Some of it is healthy role playing. A lot of it is a less healthy cover up. Pretending we’re someone more likeable. Less objectionable in some way. I had a few very good friends as a teenager, people I was always myself with, but it was always much harder to be around other people. It was a lot of mental work to figure out who they expected me to be. So I’d end up essentially being nothing. Nobody.<\/p>\n

There was a fairly long period where I really don’t think I was<\/em> anyone. I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t really trying to be anyone else. I just…I wasn’t. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t unhappy. I didn’t think I was, anyway. It wasn’t until much later that I figured out that I was numb. Numb to pretty much everything. I was living with someone who didn’t really know me and who I was convinced would not like me if he did. This is not a great basis for a marriage. I got so tired of pretending to be the person I thought he would like that I just stopped having a personality at all. Being conventional is hard. Hearing “but that’s weird” all the time is hard. So I just sort of faded away.<\/p>\n

I \u00a0think I’ve mentioned that I find as I get older that my long held belief that if I act like myself no one will like me has turned out to be completely wrong. And it’s not that people just tolerate me when I am myself. People actually like me more. A lot more. Some of them even tell me that. It makes me smile. <\/p>\n

I hope I never get completely used to it.<\/p>\n

At this point it’s still a really pleasant surprise every time I hear it.<\/p>\n

(Trying really hard not to go all Sally Field here…..)<\/p>\n

Now that I’ve figured out how to be myself, more or less, I just need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.<\/p>\n

Scratch that–I am not going to grow up.<\/p>\n

Do I still need to figure out what I want to be if I know who I am?<\/p>\n

Great, my logic just got stuck in a loop.<\/p>\n

I better overanalyze the situation a little more, but this picture tells my story pretty well.<\/p>\n

Will keep you all posted.<\/p>\n

\"20131122-215051.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I try so hard just to be myself but I keep on fading away. –Elvis Costello\/Pay It Back   This above all: to thine own self be true –William Shakespeare\/Hamlet   It seems like it’s a fairly universal fact of being a teenager and young adult: \u00a0we all do a lot of playacting when we’re … Continue reading Be true to your school. Or yourself. Whatever.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/20131122-215009.jpg?fit=300%2C180&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-Cb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6283,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=6283","url_meta":{"origin":2367,"position":0},"title":"How many words?","author":"Michelle","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I look like I was living out in the frozen wilderness, where I was panning for adjectives or something else that wild writers do. --Neil Gaiman On July 10 of last year, after a month or two of fiddling around with a web site I've had for several years, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/20140618-164940-60580591.jpg?fit=454%2C313&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2615,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2615","url_meta":{"origin":2367,"position":1},"title":"Dating game redux","author":"Michelle","date":"November 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Friday night We went streaking in the park Skinny dipping in the dark Then had a m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois --Katy Perry\/Friday Night In my fairly long foray into the world of online dating, I had a lot of time to look at people's user profiles. Obviously, I looked at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10973,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=10973","url_meta":{"origin":2367,"position":2},"title":"Blog maintenance","author":"Michelle","date":"November 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there. --Charles BukowskiA lot of times, I start posts which don't ever get finished.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4392,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4392","url_meta":{"origin":2367,"position":3},"title":"An American Tragedy","author":"Michelle","date":"April 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There was a tragic story out of Florida recently involving a police officer and some teenage lovers who were running away from home to be together. All three ended up dead when the boy shot the officer, and then his girlfriend and himself. The letters the two had written each\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9751,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9751","url_meta":{"origin":2367,"position":4},"title":"The evolution of sexuality and self awareness","author":"Michelle","date":"April 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.--ee cummingsI was sexually precocious, I think. I suppose all children are, before they get corrected out of it. I don't remember a time where I didn't masturbate. There was the infamous episode in which I got caught doing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3240,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=3240","url_meta":{"origin":2367,"position":5},"title":"normal is as normal does","author":"Michelle","date":"January 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When you're half a woman and you're half awake With a face full of tears and a chemical shake Given half a chance, that I can take --Elvis Costello\/You'll Never be A Man You think that you're living, you don't really know Big tears mean nothing You can count them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}