9/4/13

before-you's

I'll compare it to the feeling of hearing your own voice played back at you out of speakers.  Typically, you're the one who hears your voice the most out of anyone.  It's something you feel pretty confident in being familiar with.  But suddenly, when you hear it the way everyone else does, it sounds wrong.  There couldn't be more repulsive auditory stimulus in existence, and all you want in the world is for it to stop.

It's kind of like that.  Where I have this idea, this picture in my head of what I think I resemble.  But then I look in the mirror and find staring back at me a creature I can't recognize.  I swear we've never met.  And whenever I was around any of these others, any of the before-you's, the vision of myself in my mind had arms that were at least 13 inches too long for her body.  She was definitely cross-eyed.  She had a substantial uni-brow or something equally horrific.  Her teeth were all sorts of sticking-out and crooked and she was like an outhouse in the sense that you wouldn't want to be near her for any longer than your breath could be held in your lungs.

This was how I assumed I must have looked, based on all of these before-you's treatment of me.  Then I'd crawl home at the end of the night, look in the mirror and come to a realization.  The coast was clear - No uni-browed monster here.  I wasn't half as ungraceful and revolting as I had been made to believe.  So, I'd ask, What gives?

It was like this with you.  Except, of course, the exact opposite.  I could describe the entire initiation of our relationship with two words: Who, me?  After spending time in your oh-so lovely presence, I would face that mirror at the end of the night thinking that exact thing.  Here you had me under the impression that I was some sort of prepossessing cherubim when I was really, in fact, just plain old me.

7 comments:

  1. this. oh my gosh. this is my favorite post of yours - EVER. the way it's written, the story it tells, the truth it beholds. everybody feels this to some degree and you just laid it out there so perfectly.

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  2. oh holy wow. yes, just yes. this pretty sums up the existence of natalia and how pitiful. glad to know i'm not alone and there's hope for me in the future.
    x's and o's all and all that stuff.

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    1. You are definitely not pitiful! haha and there is so much hope, don't worry your cute little head.

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  3. This is fabulous. The end, I like it. I don't know what it is exactly, I'd assume just great writing. That'd make sense, wouldn't it. Yep. I could never leave a comment like this on someone's blog I didn't know. Oh good, you get me. Phew!

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  4. "Oh good, you get me"

    that is our friendship! haha right there.

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  5. This just blew my mind. I had a relationship like this and this is a killer description. Prepossessing cherubim. Ugh. I love your writing so much.

    Em
    Tightrope to the Sun

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