I really need to tell them. I sat down to type this and the washer and dryer were going full speed and were LOUD. Goodness they were loud. When I came downstairs, my mom knew that I was going downstairs and knew I was recording something but I haven’t told them what I’m working on yet. And I notice that as I was about to start, I felt frustrated that the machines were on, that they didn’t know that I needed it quiet at 9am, 1pm, and 5pm everyday. But they don’t know because I haven’t told them.
How often does this happen in life, where we get frustrated at someone else for doing something that interferes with our plans, without telling them what our plans are? Why don’t we just tell them? Perhaps we want to keep the plans a secret, perhaps we’re afraid of what they’ll say, maybe we don’t have the confidence to know what we will say.
I think sometimes I hide things because I’m afraid of the reaction; I’m afraid I’ll be told, “Wow, why are you wasting your time.” Or worse, people won’t say that but they’ll imply it with their silence.
Maybe this is compounded by it being quarantine. I’m already feeling overexposed, overly raw and vulnerable just by being in my house with the same two people for over one month straight, spending almost all waking hours together. Maybe I’m just trying to carve out some me-time, in a way, not wanting everything I do subject to visibility by the people I can’t really hide from.
I don’t know if many, if any, of us are used to such constant contact with the people in our lives. Most of the time, if we feel overexposed, we’ll head to the bar, the store, the park, the friend’s house, the road, or really, the wherever, just to give us that space to process or to avoid. Nowadays, very few of us have that option. While I say this, I also recognize that I’m one of the luckier ones—our house is big enough that I can go downstairs, go to my room, or even go outside for a walk/run, whereas many people in the city or smaller homes don’t have these options.
However, it’s not just because of the quarantine, I might do this anyway. As much as I talk about being open, I often lead a very private life, or, let’s say, a compartmentalized life. My friends don’t really know my other friends, even if they live in the same city. I rarely post to the internet about people in my life, or about the things that I do. Maybe the internet feels like quarantine: if I post too much and become too vulnerable, it’s hard for me to run away to find privacy. It’s like one house jam-packed with billions of people and I won’t be able to find myself again.
Perhaps that’s not true. Perhaps I could still run from Facebook to Hacker News to other virtual spaces on the internet. Perhaps I could still maintain distance while having closeness.
