A roller coaster woman

i am a pain in the ass. This is one of the things that I know about myself. Don't get me wrong. I'm a nice person, sometimes even too nice. I have basically good character. I could flatter myself by saying that Chaucer's description of the Wife of Bath (roughly paraphrased...she had that streak of coarseness often found in characters fine and large...) could fit well for me. I'm polite, generally well spoken, rarely break wind in public, and I'm a pain in the ass.

When I have trouble keeping up with all the moods I go through in one day, I know it has to be exasperating for everybody else. It's challenging for the people who love me. I would imagine that it's nearly impossible for the rest. Today alone, I've been sternly angry, invoking looks of fear that weren't quite as hidden as the people behind the faces wished. I've been silly. I've been romantic and well, ahem, lustful. I've been crisply professional. I've been maternal and caring. I've been irritated and selfish, just wanting people to let me be and do the things I want to do. I've fought the urge to be both a tightwad and a spendthrift. I've been shivery with awe that life sometimes delivers just the words I need to hear from the most unexpected places. I've been sparking with a new story idea that's demanding pen and paper from me instead of keyboard and monitor. I've been tired and resentful, and I've had my moments of pride. All in all, it's been a typical day.

Do other people go through this? People have been calling me moody as long as I can remember, and now, I don't know if I became moody from self-fulfilling prophecy or my labellers were just accurate. To be fair, most people had no idea of what was going on behind my calm face, but the feelings were still intense and demanding, even when they rapidly changed places. I've learned to hide much of my personal reality from the rest of the world. A smile can conceal so much. I have to wonder just how much everyone else is concealing as well.

I like the passion I bring to life. I like having a broad range of emotions and experiencing them fully. I neither know how nor want to be anyway else. I don't expect people to put up with all of my moods. I know that some can only bear the calm, professional me. Some can only handle the creative me, the nurturing me or the fun and silly me. It's okay. I don't mind being a thousand different people at once but only showing one face at a time. My friends can enjoy that aspect that they can most easily handle and leave the rest. It may be too much to expect anyone to handle the full complexity of any other human being. Discovering ourselves is hard enough. Taking all that another person can offer could blow the circuits.

Feeling this way, I still will go on being my moody, pain in the ass self. My emotions can wear me out, but they also build me up. For the right people, my moods can do the same thing if they're able to hang on for the ride.


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moods, emotions