There must be something so liberating just existing as your honest self. I am by no means a liar, not dishonest in the slightest, but I adapted to those around me. In exchange, it protected the parts of myself I didn’t want people to see, as they were too distracted by seeing the mirrored traits they so enjoyed in themselves. But that meant that when I slipped out, as just myself, I felt uneasy. Knowing the judgements being made weren’t against the projections of themselves, but of me, truthfully. The quirks of mine, the complexities. They could overwhelm people. They overwhelmed me sometimes.
