Who I Am

“I heard that Harper Lee died, and you were the first person I thought of,” said one of my friends.

“Hey, you’re big into movies, aren’t you?”

“The church bells were playing The Eagles, and I thought of you.”

“I heard about this Harry Potter book party, and I had to tell you about it!”

These are just a few of the things that people have said to me recently that made me just puff up with pride. Well, actually the first one made me break out into sobs, because that was the first I’d heard that Harper Lee died, but still. To be associated with those things that I loved, because I had made it so known that I was a fan of those things, was amazing.

It’s only been recently that I’ve started to talk to people I don’t live with. Unless I was being forced to, that is. I’m an introvert, and being social is draining on me under the best of circumstances and incredibly stressful if things aren’t just so. So for me to tell people the things I was into, not happening. Heaven forbid someone disagreed with me. I mean, what if I told someone that I liked fantasy novels and they told me that they liked Eragon? Or worse, the dreaded, ‘I don’t read’. Even worse than that was talking about something real, something personal. What if they judged me about something that matters, like parenting or politics?

It took a lot of work on my part, and a lot of patience on the part of a lot of other people, to get me to the point where I would be honest about how I felt about things. But the benefits have been wonderful.

The best part, by far, is being the first person someone thinks of when they think of Harper Lee. So own yourself, and be honest about it.