Mirror, Mirror

I've often wondered how is it we choose the people we interact with most often.  What are the qualifications we've set, even without realizing it, for someone to become part of our inner circle?  Who do we confide in and share our deepest fears, hopes and observations to?

I've always thought that maybe we sought balance, like the whole ying and yang thing, so we opted to include people whose strengths would be listed as our weaknesses.  Friends who can cook when you get together, while you are steering clear of the oven that catches fire if you come within three feet of it, or those who can pull together an outfit from the same closet that makes you look like a trash picker.  I've tried to find those qualities within all the people who I tuck under my wing of prayer at night, and while they do balance me out, I've found something deeper than all that balance stuff.

They must see me.  It doesn't matter how different a person is from me, if they cannot see me for who I am, I cannot get close to them.  If I am close already, I find myself pulling away.  If I confide something that's truly bothering me and they offer me some flippant advice about "getting over it..." it stings.  Because they haven't seen that this thing has caused me some serious self-examination and I want to talk it out.  If I am going that route, it's not something I need to "get over."

I often wonder why it is that someone can be so convinced of something to the point that they think they know someone better than the person knows themselves.  When did everyone become therapists?  I'm not asking for anyone to see something that isn't there, but I do ask that they don't make up shit that isn't.  I've never asked a mirror to reflect an untrue vision back at me, but I will not accept the smudge across it as a flaw on the person looking into it.

It's either me or it isn't.

In the case I'm thinking of now, it's not.  And that bothers me.  I am not being seen as me, but a version of myself that simply does not exist.  I am undervalued and overburdened.

And it sucks.