Ungrammatical ramblings

December 18

My father-in-law read my piece that just came out in Balancing The Tides. It’s about my first real kiss. After he read it, he looked uncomfortable (not in a grossed out way) but more like what he said, which was “It was…so…personal, revealing.”

That’s been the theme with me this week. People making remarks about me that…are true and kind of scary. My friends and I had book club this week and the conversation turned to a kind of characterization of ME. One of my friends told a story about our childhood where we had gotten into a fight and I wanted to “work it out” and wanted her to “tell me how you feel”. She laughed as she told the story and she said, “What 13 year-old talks like that!” And my other friend, who I am very close to, like sisters, but we have only met this year said, “Yeah, I’m on the treadmill with her, and she somehow has me sobbing and she’s like, ‘that’s great let it out’.” Then the other two chimed in and it all turned into a– kind of– well, actually, a little nice. “What’s so great about you Hannah is that you are REAL and it isn’t bullshit. You can’t help it and you force everyone around you to be that way and sometimes it is too much for them.”

I felt weird but pleased and thankful and in awe. Weird because I had the realization that: wow, it’s a lot to be involved with me…pleased because I felt like no one ever understood me growing up that maybe I was grossly misunderstood. It pleased me to be “gotten” and then appreciated for who I am. The awe is the reality that people do know me…better than I think. That they know me and STILL like me.

I think of myself as intense and focused but also laid back and open. I think of myself as having a duality in my personality that is both kind of type A yet then sort of a hippy.

Oh God...this blog entry is turning into a Stuart Smalley sketch, “I’m good enough…smart enough…and gosh darnit, people like me….”