In a sea of important political statements, personal accounts of fear, and buzzfeed articles, I can understand if this post gets overlooked. But for those who decided to open it and give it a look, thank you for giving me a shot.
I've recently been struggling with something that I never really thought I'd personally have trouble with. I've found myself really filtering my words when I'm in conversation (and no, probably not for the reasons you're thinking). But I've begun to notice that every time I go to open my mouth about anything, I stop and instantaneously ask myself "Does what you're about to say matter?" or "Why would they care? Why should they care? Do they care?" And for the past few months, 90% of the time, my answer has continuously been "no".
So what that I think that La La Land was beautiful and I really connected to it?
So what that I analyze a play by simply seeing it, and its characters in colors?
So what that I've been obsessing over the band The Greeting Committee as of late?
Sure, these things are extremely miniscule and I completely overlooked the fact that I monitored the outlet of these thoughts. But eventually heavier thoughts started to be forced through the strainer:
It's absolutely insanity that women are still overshadowed by men and aren't seen as equals.
I'm tired of men looking at me like a piece of meat and calling me a prude or a "nasty bitch" when I reject them.
I'm tired of women picking apart other women.
It's disgusting that people try and make me feel like less of a woman because of my cup-size.
How is it that I still feel like I'm at square one with my depression after all these years?
It wasn't until a close friend of mine told me that she loves my brain and my thoughts and stories that I realized I'd been slowly depleting them from the rest of the people in my world. I'm not saying that my thoughts are the most important things or anything spectacular by any means, but I realized that they should be important to the people that I care about and say care about me. "It shouldn't matter whether or not I like theatre- when you talk about theatre, because of how passionate you are, it makes me excited and interested! And like Sofia [a shared friend and ex-roommate of ours], she wants to be an actuary. And in reality I wouldn't normally give a shit about actuary sciences but because of how passionate she is about it, I'm fascinated by it and know a little bit more about the world now!"
Once she said that, it clicked. I normally wouldn't care about actuary sciences, real estate, internal auditing, biochemical sciences, screenprinting, country-folk music, videogame playthroughs, advertising, hospitality, reality television, or a whole slew of other things, but because there are people in my life who are passionate about all of that, I've come to learn a lot about the world. And I honestly feel like a better, more well-rounded and understanding person because of it.
So moral of this rambling post- my thoughts matter. My passions matter. As much as his, as hers, as yours, as theirs. And I don't want to live comparatively anymore either. I'm working on consciously tearing through my insanely fine filter, and I'm working on continuing to listen to understand rather than respond.
