I want to start this blog off with a quick note about my seemingly unfinished gratitude project. As life began to take a very rough turn, my gratitude project quickly became very personal. I was struggling to turn every entry into something "blog worthy" without sharing intimate details I didn't wish to broadcast. So while I didn't blog the entire thing, I did complete it via journal. I appreciate those who followed along during the blog portion.
It happened again, the style of confrontation I struggle with the most. I was told I was "Too much." It was followed by phrases like, "You're just a lot," and, "You're very intense," as well as the favorite phrase, "You just feel things differently than most."
These types of things have been said to me quite often throughout my life, starting in early childhood. I was always too sensitive, too passionate, too excited, too optimistic, too emotional, and just, "different." I've done a lot of work in therapy, as well as through journaling, reading, and meditation, to find a healthy balance between my heightened emotions and perceptions of the world, and the actual reality of how the world works. Not to blow my own horn but, if I'm being honest, I think I've come a long way from the so-called delusional optimist I was, to the still hopeful dreamer I am today. And yet, despite my many efforts, I am once again sitting in the box labeled "too much."
I've always been a daydreamer. I guess that's where the whole "imaginating" thing came from (refer back to gratitude posts if you're new to that term). I'm sure, by 2023 standards, that would land me with some form of neurodivergent diagnosis, but at this point, I'm curious what exactly is "normal" by societal standards. I'm not curious enough to dig too deeply though, because regardless, my imaginating is a big part of my core, and it doesn't stop me from living life, so...no need to examine too deeply. Anyway, my dreaming, my imaginating, my "too muchness"...it's what fuels my creative fire. It's what helps me write books and poems. It leads me to put pencil to paper and make art. It also leads me to love deeply.
However, the problem doesn't come from the writing inspiration, or the art, or the love, it comes from the underbelly of the beast. The problem with my too-muchness always seems to be rooted in my burning passion for a vivid life. At the end of the day, I'm a firm believer that, no matter if reincarnation is real or not, we only live this life once. Therefore, I expect a lot from it. I crave passion and adventure, bold actions and brave words. I desire love that is poetry in motion, and life that leaves you breathless and satiated. I crave for a fire that inspires novels, and daydreams made reality. The cookie cutter life of mediocrity was never a mold I wanted to fit. After all, my life was predestined to be short, and damn it if I wasn't going to make the most of it. But most people that find comfort in labeling those like me "too much" don't desire that style of life. They don't crave for the extraordinary, or the work required to set the soul alight. So the too-muchness makes waves. It causes destruction in the face of the ordinary life, for two different world views can't seem to exist simultaneously in today's world. One must always be "right," even if there is no such thing.
I believe I mentioned my former therapist from California in one of my gratitude posts, and her analogy about human emotions being like boxes of crayons. She said the average human has a twelve to twenty four pack, some have the basic eight pack, some struggle just to manage the three pack of waxy crayons you get from restaurants with kid's menus, but me? I'm the one hundred and twenty crayon box, complete with built in sharpener. Top that with the fact that I'm ambidextrous and like to color with both hands, and before you know it you are awash in a sea of colorful emotions. I'm not gloating here, it is as much a curse as it is a blessing, for it is my crayon box that fuels the too-muchness of my spirit. The tenacity, the passion, the desire, the excitement, the relentless pursuit of a life that sets the soul on fire...all of it, powered by the crayons. And all of it too much.
I've spent the last seven years of my existence attempting to mute the colors. To erase the whirls, swirls, and lines that made me too bold, too loud, too unsettled, too opinionated, too energetic, too positive, too much. I've held the box closed so tightly that I forgot what it felt like to color. I became a watered down, grayscale version of myself. And the funniest thing? Turns out she's still...too much. She's still a lot. Still intense. Still too much. All it accomplished was causing the unrelenting sensation of tossing a mentos into a coke bottle and trying to keep the cap on, bubbling right beneath the surface. All dialing myself down seemed to do was put a block on seven years of potential art, stories, words, and adventures. Because, as it turns out, you will always be too much for some, and not enough for others. But at the end of the day, all that matters is that you get to be you, and that you get to radically love and accept yourself and all of your too muchness.
I see the world differently than most. I used to be compared to a supernova by two dear friends, a star that has great brightness thanks to it's own explosion. I see art, and poetry, and color in places where most see nothing. I dream of a vivid, explosive, colorful life, where all of the crayons get their chance to color. I dream of new whirls, new swirls, new lines without fragments or braids. I dream of inspiring authentic expression in a world that begs you to be ordinary.
After years of suppression, I dream of embodying too-muchness, and inspiring others to do the same.
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