schizo

Remember when you were little and your mom was yelling at you for taking shortcuts on your chores or lying about watching TV before your homework was done or putting a worm in your little brother's mouth?

Remember how the phone would ring while she was all red-faced and yelling?

Remember how she could stop mid-lecture and answer with a cheery little "Hello!"?

I remember.

And I remember resenting my mom for that. I remember thinking how phony she was answering the phone and being all friendly and chatty and polite when she was being "like so totally unfair" just a minute ago. (Because that's exactly how I talked when I was younger... *shakes head*)

I also remember how I vowed to NEVER do that.

Ha!

I totally do it now.

Isn't it funny how we change ourselves according to the situation we are in?

I would hope that I am honest. That I am consistent. That I am the same person no matter who I am talking on the phone with or hanging out with or chatting online with.

"To thine own self be true."

But I'm not.

I know I change for people.

I know I speak quieter and more formally with the older ladies at church than I do with a group of my friends. All loud and obnoxious, maybe even a bit off-colored.

I know my writing takes on a different tone when I'm venting to my mommy group on Facebook than when I'm writing to my family.

We may have graduated from high school, but we all do this, right?

We change ourselves, maybe mute or amplify parts of our personalities, according to who we are with at the time.

I observe bloggers doing this all the time in their post comments. You see a blogger that leaves the sweetest, nicest comment on one blog, but leaves the wankiest comments on another blog.

(Is wanky even a word? Maybe I better make sure I understand what that means before I use it. It just sounds "right" right there. Attention: Make up your own definition for "wanky".)

I'll be frank...When I see other bloggers do this, it irritates me.

Wanna know what irritates me more?

It really irritates me that I am tempted to rough up or prettify my comments according to whose blog I am commenting on and probably have actually done so on more than one occasion.

(Tell me I'm not the only one who does this.)

Someday, my goal is to be the same person no matter where I am. I suppose that goal will be achievable when I a) accomplish one of my Thirty goals in not caring what anyone but God and myself thinks about me and b) become happy and content with who I am.

*wince* Tough order.

One of the things I love/hate about blogging is that you never know who is reading. Whatever I post on here might be read by my best friend, my new friend, my neighbor, the youth I used to teach in church, my uncle, an ex-friend, my mom, an old boy friend, a stranger in Australia, who knows.

I'm always shocked when I visit my hometown and am approached by someone I haven't seen or talked to in years and they say something like "I love your blog! I read it all the time."

Honestly, my first reaction to this is not to be flattered, but to be afraid.

You do??? Did I write something stupid or offensive or too revealing or pathetic or mean or sappy or too religious or not enough religious or too sarcastic or...or...or...???

Of course once I work my way past those few frantic moments, then I blush a bit with pure happiness that someone is actually reading my little ol' blog.

I hope they read because here is where I am ME.

I hope that I consistently write in Evelyn-ese. That what I say on here is what I would say to you in person (if I could only speak as well as I write) whether we were at church or at a party or at the grocery store bumping into each other.

So...Do you think you are a blog schizo or a Stable Mable???

Lend me your thoughts. Me, Myself, and I would love to read them!