The Gift of Sharing
Confessions of an Introvert [24]:
I attended a career growth workshop last week, where we learned about the importance of having open conversations with your manager on your goals and career strategy. The facilitator couldn’t stress enough the importance of bringing along the manager on one’s journey, essentially making the manager pushing for your success.
Writing and sharing my journey on the web, similarly, have provided me a vessel for open communication and building ‘success’. I didn’t realize how much of my train of thought has been exposed on the Internet until my birthday wishes start rolling in last week. People wishing me the best of wishes I had ever received, hitting bullseye on the values and purpose I care most about.
Wow! How do these friends, some I have known for less than a year, many I haven’t met in person since the pandemic could recount precisely my earnest dreams? - I questioned.
Then I remember I have been putting my inner thoughts on the web for every week in the last six months, an activity that is as alien to myself as to most people in my social network. My initial purpose with writing weekly is to hold myself accountable to a consistent writing practice but it has grown into a multitude of things: a documentation of adult life, a mode of sharing inner mental workings without having to shout in a room (or more aptly, message every person individually knowing myself). It’s a quiet rebellion and an act of personal manifestation.
Sharing opens up the locks and doors, and alleys within my mind to the public. Sharing unscrew the caps of my bottled up emotions. If four years earlier, only two of my best friends knew I write in my free time. Now, at least one third of my online connections do. I used to look up online muffin recipes and sneakily baked during my grandparents’ fiesta to have the kitchen for myself, now I make a mess of people’s kitchen, teaching new friends how to make Japanese brioche bread, making freezer batch cookies for my family and sending off relatives with banana bread.
I am gladly, welcomingly be called a writer. My friends and I tease each other about buying a whole case of my book(s) when I publish my book. I talked about homesickness in America and saw several friendship bloomed from those conversations. All of my friends are well versed with my need to sample French pastries in every new city (fyi Seattle so far is leading the pack within America) as I make them go with me on every epic croissant hunt.
That is to say, not everything I have I put on the Internet or are open for sharing. As I open my heart, I like to keep the most precious aspects of my life private. You won’t see me gushing about the most tender moments + people + events online. I’d like to keep those treasures for my own. Katie from unfurled spirals did a wonderful job of explaining the concept of legibility vs. understanding in her 'keep your heart close' essay..
Legibility is fundamentally different from understanding. Frankly, legibility is simple; it’s just the sharing of information.
I appreciate you for your understanding (the tip of my iceberg) but bear in mind to not make assumptions about me as a person if you had only known me for a few weeks or months. I am an avid advocate for long time, long term, reliable, always-show-up friendships. After all, my top love language is act of service.
My more childish self thought it is cool to keep life all to myself. I feel more comfortable, more safe, and guarded that way. We humans though, we can’t love and be loved without experiencing vulnerability and pain. I now know it is pleasant to be known, even for just a slice of my life. When all that you love are so easily seen, it’s easier on me to understand myself and find people who enjoy my company. Exhibit A: A friend inviting me to go to a park last weekend because she needs to ‘reconnect with nature’. Of course, I’ll say yes.
Now, if you are an introvert who is struggling to connect, may be try it out?
Awwwwwwwwwww