I am a walking collection of images. I believe that most adults are capable of adapting to our current situation as needed. In my case, however, I have a bunch of different personalities on storage to be used as the situation calls for. When I'm at work, I am professional, fun-loving, always happy Tami. When I'm at home, I am lazy, curl up on the couch with my laptop, don't want much excitement Tami. When I'm at church, I am ray of sunshine, life is perfect, everyone's friend Tami.
What these "on-storage" personalities have done over time is shroud the real Tami from most of the world. With the exception of my husband and a couple of VERY close friends, my true, complete identity remains a mystery to most. There is very little that I find more freeing than just being COMPLETELY transparent. Thus the purpose of this post. I'm not revealing everything at once...just two or three things that I tend to keep hidden. Here goes:
1)
I am hyper image-conscious. 
Most of what I do and say is motivated by how I think I am coming across to others or how I think they will receive me. I have in my mind what I think are the ideal internal and external human qualities (physical beauty, smiles, physical fitness, great posture, super positive outlook on life, etc...) and I work day and night to present this in my everyday walk. This ties in to why I am such a people-pleaser in some ways, and need validation from others. I feel that I need to be sure that the image others have of me is the one I'm trying to present.
2)
I am very territorial when it comes to my friends. Here's a quick example. I have a really good friend that I met at work. She and I became extremely close and spent a lot of time together during my first year at the company. Over time, she also began getting to know a couple of other co-workers that I became friendly with. Even though neither of us are as close to the other co-workers as we are to one another, she eventually began feeling obligated to invite them to come along EVERYWHERE that she and I went. And they also began inviting themselves along EVERY TIME she and I were going to hangout for lunch. I became somewhat resentful of the other two co-workers; I felt that they were imposing on the friendship I had; they never interacted with her unless I was around.
Since I was the only link between them and my friend, I expected them to get that and not invite themselves to lunch with us as frequently as they did. Here's the thing: I've been on the other side before too. At my last company, if I became close to "co-worker A" who I sat right next to, "co-worker B" who I wasn't as close to would would come over to our area and invite "co-worker A" to lunch. I was NEVER invited by "co-worker A" OR "co-worker B" to go along with them. EVER. So in my mind, it served as a lesson that one should make their own friends, instead of assuming that you are friends with someone "by-proxy".
I am just now realizing is that maybe the behavior at the last company was actually shady, and the behavior at my current company is more common/normal. And this is most likely the case looking back at the sum total of behavior I was exposed to there. Anyhoo, that's all for now. I'll share more next Sunday.
Labels: friends, life, self
