Between You & Me, I’m not ashamed to say I’ve been called embarrassing a good handful of times. And not just the “embarrassing” I exuded as a 13-year-old girl awkwardly unsure of how her new jeans fit, but even in my adult life I see the way people hide their faces around me when my laugh grows “too” loud.
That’s fine, I’ve never been everyone’s cup of tea. My way of experiencing life has always left an uncomfortableness in some people’s mouths. Again, I’m not ashamed to say I’m a lot, but what am I, if not a steaming and screaming kettle of color? This is my creative process—My whole life is a creation at my hands.
Yes, my creative process: my way of life.
My whole life is a creation at my hands.
Look, I’ve been a writer my whole life. What comes into my lungs as lived experience gets exhaled as words—thoughts making the ordinary more beautiful. So, who am I to not live life as beautifully as I want my art to be?
Of course, the people who lack the capacity to digest this type of life call me cringe.
Well from the wise words of (probably) a Twitter user, “baby, I am cringe, but I am free!”
Don’t get me wrong, now that I’m in my early 20s, the idea of my existence being too much is something I brush off my shoulders—in one ear and out the other.
However, my zest for a fully lived life was my worst enemy before I knew how to blossom within it.
One night, in my junior year of high school, I was confronted with the issue of having neon green hair, a boyfriend who definitely hated me, and a burning desire for my personality—the one that spilt all over the place—to be held in someone’s arms. It’s an unfortunate teenage girl issue that led to a few years of trying to clean up the parts of myself that I’d leave behind.
Not that it was really a mess—well, usually. But one night I sat in his apartment begging for us to dance around the room in a way I’ve always dreamt about, with limbs tripping over each other and a gentle kiss on the forehead. That day I had given him a love letter from the depths of my needing heart.
He always said no to the dancing,
and the way my laugh paints the walls,
the way I loved,
anything that didn’t consider him,
and anything that brought a spark into my eyes.
When we broke up I thought, “Maybe I am doing too much!” Then that feeling continued to last for a couple years, but now it feels like it was only a split second.
Then again, maybe he should’ve just stuck to dating someone with the essence of a personality.
I was at my most uncreative, depleted—the zest being completely strained out with whatever was left of my body. I wished for nothing more than to shrink myself nto a palatable size and just quit, leaving those stupid messes behind me.
Once more, I am not for everybody. The grandiosity in which I live my life has had the tendency to make people shy away from me. They see this decadent, potent tea spilling over the rim of my cup and get embarrassed, angry, insecure—whatever they feel, it doesn’t allow them to enjoy a sip. How could they? They would rather just let me sit lukewarm with them.
My creative process, the “cringey-ness” of it all, is simply the way I stay alive. I stay alive with the laugh that reverberates through the depths of my lungs, the way I can’t sit still in one place, the way colors seem brighter everywhere I go. Without this, I’m simply not me.
So, for anyone who doesn’t enjoy a drink of me, may they be at ease without the sound of my soul.
