Looking Back Years and Years, Feeling Old and Young At the Same Time.

There was a girl, not a long time ago, who made few friends and was quiet. She made friends slowly; mingling was difficult with children who had a different background, not that she was particularly outgoing, either. She wanted others to like her, because she thought nobody would like her and be friends with her otherwise. She bluffed and lied and pretended, as best she could, to be perfect. She was scared. Scared that anything she did would be repulsive, disgusting. Afraid that being too friendly would be too bothersome.

So she restrained herself from giving a classmate a pat on the back, declined invitations to go to movies and hang out and have dinner. No, she said, I have something to do. Her friends left her alone after a while. And she became more standoffish until it became a habit. Having a parent to drive her home became part of her excuse.

Oh, she was amiable enough to talk to anyone who initiated the conversation. But she didn't make many more friends, and the ones she had she became less familiar with.
____________________________

After a little while, I got fed up with the cognitive dissonance between what I think and what I do. I was also pretty fed up with mindlessly listing what I did from day to day. Originally I thought I should keep all my angst and boy-squealing to another blog that I will hide from the world (or at least from people I know personally). Then on 07 July, 2005, I said, "[t]he last time I posted it was almost a year ago, for the sake of people who don't care about my angst. But then I was like, screw this, and went for putting everything, from anime reviews and afterthoughts to funny links to daily angst on there. 'Cus there's nothing to hide from."

The very first reason for a blog was to record my thoughts, since I've never successfully kept a diary/journal of any sorts before. Its second purpose was to make myself let go of trying to keep my reputation. To open up, and be true. To make myself accept the imperfect, not quite stoic enough self and be happy with it. I've talked about a mask more than once during these years, and I still use this horribly common metaphor. It improved my sociability, and to a much smaller degree, my self confidence and self esteem.

It was partly because I made myself talk about things that didn't make me look good, but more importantly, because the little comments let me know that people will still associate with me even when I had all these faults and imperfections and different pastimes. I'm still working on it.

I once vouched to not censor anything, but of course, it only worked to a certain degree. I especially refrained from talking about my love life, for good reason.

Now, I don't know what I'm doing with Kakeru. I post interesting articles, gives random one line updates sparingly, and comments on things when they come up. It's as if I stopped talking about myself. Perhaps I have more things that fall in the censored material category now. And because I have a person to, uh, listen to me rant now...though the only thing that's changed about that is getting more direct, immediate responses...sorry, Larry =p

I was getting somewhere with this, but, as usual, I've lost my focus. Ah, oh well, this is what the blog is for =)