A Gratuitous Self-Unburdening. Caveat Emptor.

What people think you are and what you actually are are sometimes two different things. I had a lengthy conversation with a friend yesterday, during which she praised me for a particular service I had performed for someone. She wondered why she wasn't more like me, more Christlike and giving. I started laughing. That question has come up once before with another friend, so I felt like I needed to set the record straight.

"I spent a lot of time doing that service," I said, "and while it was needed and I was glad to be able to help someone who needed it, it was hard for me. Sometimes it took hours a day, and I had to play frantic catch-up with my family and work. I wondered why I felt resentful sometimes. My family certainly resented all the hours I spent running errands, doing shopping, driving to doctors appointments, and driving over there whenever she called for my help. I wondered how someone can be Christlike if they feel resentful about serving someone else, so I don't give myself too many pats on the back for it."

My friend breathed a sigh of relief.

"You are human!" she exclaimed. "To me, you always appear to be so calm and put together, like you have everything under control."

When I stopped laughing, she said, "Do you have insecurities? Tell me about them. I'm interested to hear them."

Oof. Share my insecurities? Expose my weaknesses? It was because I know this woman is particularly humble in that area that I didn't change the subject, but did she have all day to listen to my laundry list of insecurities? I realized then just how much of a public persona I accidentally create. It's not because I am afraid that if someone sees me as less than superhuman they won't like me. I think superhumans are, perhaps, the hardest people to like because you are so tempted to compare yourself unfavorably to them and feel like a waste of space. Who enjoys that? It's far easier to blame the superhuman for your inadequacies than to accept yourself as worthwhile even with your warts and flaws. The people who know me don't see me as superhuman, I hope.

The reason I don't share more of my worries is because I don't feel like it would be an interesting subject to other people, not because I don't have them. Plus, I grew up as the listener, the one to whom my friends came to unburden their souls. I got so good at it that people I barely knew would unburden their souls to me. There was that time in the high school library when one of the popular girls I didn't particularly like plopped herself down at my table and launched into an unburdening about her boyfriend. As I quietly listened and nodded, I wondered to myself what strange stars had aligned that we were having this girl moment together, when the rest of the time our circles never crossed--even in a class of  forty kids. When she was finished, and as I was struggling to process this very personal information about two people I barely knew, she breezily grabbed her stuff and ran off to her next class. We never had a conversation like that again, though I kept her confidence out of a sense of personal integrity. In the years afterward, almost complete strangers would tell me all about something painful to them and walk away feeling better while leaving me slightly bewildered. But for the most part, I was glad to be the shoulder to cry on, the person who could help lighten an emotional load. I used my journal to unburden myself, spilling out my angst and worries and frequent teenage loneliness on the pages of numerous notebooks.

But even writing this in the open (so to speak) is hard for me, so I guess I do unconsciously craft a public persona of serenity. Thankfully, I am pretty optimistic and serene the majority of the time. I will go through periods of frantic depression and self-loathing, but I don't like to dwell on those thoughts because they have a tendency to become entrenched if they are given too much attention. Better to look forward, to rise above, to pray for strength to get through the dark tunnels and walk back into the light. I have a husband, children, family, and friends who know me very well and still love me, which is sometimes surprising but always gratifying as I return that love.

So, did I share my insecurities with my friend? I did share a couple, and they aren't too much different from what I think most women feel. "I always thought I was the only one who felt like that!" said my friend. No, I assured her, you are definitely not the only one. We are all of us light and shadow. We are all of us worried that we will never measure up, a little hesitant to accept that our best is good enough. I know this because I have heard so many others tell me. Because I frequently feel it myself.

I do like to serve others, and if I help one other person realize that I see her as a wonderful, glowing being of light (including the warts, because no none is exempt from warts), I will be happy. In that way, I am serene and Christlike, because I can see the good in others and accept them for exactly who they are. For everything else, all bets are off.