Beginnings

Today is a beginning. The beginning of what exactly remains to be seen. The rest of existence, the rest of life. The embarkment of a journey into something new. A new direction. The hope of a new direction. There are a lot of things that can be done; a lot of things put off in lieu of practicality. No more time can be wasted on practicality. After all, what is the sense in living without passion? Practicality only gets you born, but it doesn’t make sure you continue breathing.

My strengths and interests are advising people, writing, researching, learning, music, films/theatre, telling a story, analyzing, empathizing, one on one relationships. Stimulation can often be my enemy. If I could only go back to that 17 year old girl who knew exactly what she wanted, but chose something she was told she should want instead. College, was that road I chose, despite knowing that I wanted to pursue my writing instead. That first year was difficult, but I had something right the first time. The fields that I studied were my passions. I was told that year that I had a “fine mind” and was encouraged to enter the honors program. I’ve been told that throughout my school years, even now that I’m pursuing my Masters.

This is part of being a highly sensitive person, according to Dr. Elaine Aaron, who has pioneered much of the research on this trait. Gifted, yet misunderstood as shy, unapproachable, timid, inward. Overstimulated by external forces that others are ok with. I’ve always known my whole life, from the time I was very young, that the label “shy” was incorrect. I’ve never felt “shy” in the sense of the word. I’m not scared. Quiet, reflective, yes, but not “shy." I’ve rediscovered myself. It's been a rediscovery of who I really am and reaffirming what I’ve seen in the background my entire life, but have been made to feel wrong about. Putting words to who I am, finding reassurance that there are others has been such an awakening. I am ok, complex as I am. The business world may need someone like me, but perhaps I don’t need or want it. Perhaps it is time to be 100% true to myself. To create through the written word is my lifeline. It's what fuels me. To engulf myself in the what could be, rather than what is. For “what is” is boring really. Where’s the fun in actuality? Isn’t that why we long to escape on a vacation, in a movie, in a book, in a song, in the stories others gossip about? To get away from who we really are, from our own life? The dullness of it can be painful. What we could be is always more alluring, like a seductive scent that carries with it all the possibilities of something more. Alive. Not kept in the darkness of sameness.

To see who you are sometimes requires going back to who you were and to what and who influenced you. I’ve been doing a lot of that recently. I remember as a child falling in love with flowers, tulips specifically. I couldn’t get enough of them, my nose was buried in them, examining the delicate intricacies of their interior, taking in their scent.

I didn’t get the chance to know my biological father too well, but perhaps it is from him that I get the majority of my sensitivity. I do believe that my mother, in her own way, is sensitive as well, but not in the artistic sense. No, from my father I believe I received my love of film, theatre and the gift of writing. I do remember going to movies with him as a child, that is a love and appreciation that was instilled very early. Of course, we went to many Disney films as he was a lover of all things "Disney."

My love of film blossomed in my senior year of high school, where it took on a more artistic tone. Writing is something that has always come naturally. A love of books, knowledge as well. Music is something I was drawn to at an early age. Those passions are still very much alive. I’ve just buried them since I was nineteen in pursuit of things not so sensitive. But it has never felt right and I’ve never been truly happy. At seventeen in my AP English class, my instructor commented that I displayed “sensitivity” in my analysis of literature. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the gift or even the full meaning of the concept. I do now, but of course it is always amusing to look back and know that you’ve always known who you were, you just got lost somewhere along the journey of life.

The pursuit of what you are not can only lead to frustration. Wouldn’t it be better to fully be who you are, to live your dreams, your wishes, to no longer hide behind what the world says you should want and what you should be. I’ve never been good at one hundred percent conformity. You could say that I have a bit of an inner rebel, an onryness that at times can land me in hot water. But the one conformity that I made has changed me. This world requires you to support yourself somehow. Practicality. Things to be acquired, bills to be paid. One thing I’ve learned though is that you can reverse or change your situations in life. If you made a wrong turn, went down the wrong path that looked right at the time, it doesn’t mean that you’re stuck there.

Copyright 2009 by H.E.A.