6 Comments

"I keep loving everyone I’ve ever loved though the intensity has long gone quiet."

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Wonderful post, please continue writing and sharing

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Have been thinking about this recently

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The sound that's been

Keeps echoing

It never disappears -conor oberst

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What you are describing seems in some ways a self-inflicted wound. How much do you really need to repress to maintain appearances? I think your description of how we do that is accurate, but I think, generally, that your "appearance" is far more important in your mind than in any one else's. If you are kind and generous in your relationships, and strong enough to nurture the good ones and let go of the destructive ones, the people you'll find yourself mostly around won't care as much about your appearance as they do about who you are in all your complexity. Your close friends are those you stick with in spite of a trait or two that you might want them to dial back. In the end repression is just surrendering control of your life to someone or something else, which is rarely a good idea.

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What if at some point you get a job, say, hypothetically, as the editor for.... I dunno, Teen Vogue ... and the online crowd will simply not allow you to proceed beyond a certain point in your life; an identity that was perhaps unwise but is now a shadow of who you are. At what point will that not matter?

I’m fortunate enough to have lived a youth that was not documented. I’m sure if someone dug around enough, they could produce a yearbook photo of two but the only documented regret would be a bad hairstyle. But I’ve done lots of things in my youth that — if documented — would preclude me from ever getting hired. Every promotion, every job would be festooned with my indiscretions. Anyway, my thoughts as I was reading through your essay. I find being the me I’m expected to be .... exhausting.

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