My kingdom for a shell

This week, I was talking to the Diplomat and realized that in the last 4 years I have managed to loose my shell. We both agreed that we had both lost out shells, but in this case I choose to talk about my shell – I mean this is my blog, so I get to choose when the attention is on me. Well so what do I mean by my shell, you ask, before I became a social person, I was a very introverted guy, who had realized he was gay, but could not really deal with it and who knew his friends could most certainly not deal with it, so instead of developing emotionally honest friendships, chose to have friends and acquaintances but no real connection.

I was the king of chit-chat. I have always had tons to say, but never something meaningful about myself. In that manner I survived High School and university and moved to the States. But as I started coming out, and realizing that people were ok with the fact that I was gay and that they even liked me – I was surprised – I lost a shell I had built to protect myself. It was heavy but very useful. It kept me in my comfort zone and helped me focus on the many tasks at hand. In this way I merrily rolled along, doing, doing, and doing always doing but rarely feeling anything. Then of course I joined the swim team and “blossomed” – a word I am stealing from a psychologist that told my parents I need to be allowed to fail a couple of classes in middle school so that I would blossom, poor thing she was clueless – into this man I have become. But the price I have paid is that I had to leave my shell somewhere between Arlington and DC, and now I feel vulnerable. I feel like I have given too much control to others, and that a big part of who I am is a response to others and the need to be liked and accepted. The irony is that the more I am accepted the more I feel like I need to keep being accepted, and of course now I do not need to hide the fact that I am gay – except with Mom, sorry Mom, you are not ready yet, well maybe you are, but I am definitely not ready for you to know.

To make a story short, I miss my shell, and the days when I thought that “I was an island”. Specially when you organize things and take part in group decision and realize that someone will always be mad, or will disagree with my judgment. I should have known this was going to happen when I joined the board of the swim team, but I am just tired of being surprised and hurt by people criticism and opinions.

Sigh, but do not worry dear reader, I am planning to turn into a tortoise again. I just need to develop a hard skin. It was to be hard enough to make me resilient to others but thin enough to let me care about what is important. I guess that is the key, to find what is really important and to not worry about the rest. Wow, I guess there is some depth underneath my rolls of fat, now how does one go about figuring the important things out? If you know, let me know.