Periscopecake

I am a very nosy person. I would say curious. I like non-malicious gossip. I want to know the dirt! But I also just want to know about things, and people, and the human condition. I like documentaries and some true crime. I like biographies and stories about love, life and experiences.

My career has been a goldmine into human drama and many many stories about life and all the ways we exist; the same, and differently, in this world. It is fascinating to me. I do not like reality television, however. I find it fake, suspiciously edited and overall, it seems like the most deplorable and unlikable people are the cast. Fake, dramatic and shallow people aren’t my jam.

Give me the honest, messy, open human experience that makes you laugh and gasp and cry. Tell me about your divorce and your parents and your bully and all the messy, damaged, real stuff. I don’t care about cars and money; surface performances.

Maybe this is why I have really long term girlfriends who I can spend hours with talking about the deeper stuff. The grievances and feelings and thoughts that ruminate. The secret desires that hide somewhere in the shadows. I want to know about sex and fears, and deep longings and the thoughts that haunt you in moments of grief, doubt and silence. I also want the craziest goals and the weird beliefs, and the “if only’s”.

Waking up to a message from my daughter today that said she wanted to see me before work because she had a lot to talk to me about, felt like I woke up with a million dollars in my bank account. Having my son text me an important life update, to then chat on the phone for an hour, is soul food akin to a 7 layer chocolate cake!

I share a lot. I share too much actually, and often experience the pangs of regret for oversharing; being too honest; saying the inside part out loud. But I have grown to appreciate that the reason people may open up to me is directly related to how much I open up to them. My son once told me that he feels like he can tell me anything and I won’t get mad. That was a complimentary pinnacle moment. Parent level up! Mission accomplished!

If a friend called or messaged me that they needed to talk or had news to share, it is dopamine like no other. My profession is stellar because so many clients share so many things with me. I just want the real human stuff. I can talk hair and travel and food and all the fun things and plans, but at some point I zone out and what to know the behind the scenes, the way it made you feel or what it inspired in your thoughts.

And don’t get it twisted, I am judgy. But not in the way you would think. Not about your fantasies or goals, kinks, hopes, fears and dreams. I am judgy about inaction. About falseness, or not sharing the whole story, or having zero introspection. I am judgy about not diving deep, or being shallow and one dimensional. But I still would listen. I would wait until you finally touched on something honest. When you finally let your guard down enough to say something true and raw. That’s where I see if I like someone.

I am a human condition junkie. I see the similarities and the understanding between many of us. I don’t understand many people and I don’t get certain behaviours, ideologies or actions. But I want to understand. I want to reach the why and the wounds; the ties that bind us and make us all damaged and fearful and loving and good.

I have been told that not everyone is like me. I have been told that people are not generally good. Sadly, the internet and social media comment sections have often proven this point. But then there are the good ones who say the messy stuff. The people who show the scars and the anger and the dark holes. These are the ones who make me feel hope that there are more of us. More people who see the dirt on your shoes and love you for it, rather than needing you to buff it away to be more palatable.

So do I want to know about the lady down the street’s divorce and what that couple on the corner does for work? Yes. Do I want to hear about your cousin’s incarceration or the lady at work’s affair and custody battle? Absolutely! But not just because I’m a nosy gossip. Because I want to wade knee deep in the pool of our messiness. I want the colours to be vivid and bright and layered; not aesthetic-influencer-beige. I want to hear about your diet and your new car, but also about the secret crush and the tangled history of the brother your didn’t know you had. Because those are the guts. That is the story that defines you and opens you up into being.

I wish that we all could shed the shrouds we have layered on after rejections and failures. The armour that keeps us from getting stung again, but also prevents people from truly knowing us. But I get it. I have heard stories of loss and dismissal. Once bitten, twice shy kind of stuff that makes sense on a level of protection and fear, and even some sense of nothing being anyone else’s business (which it isn’t, of course). But it does make me sad.

I do wonder how life would be in a world where we did feel more inclined to share and be honest. How liberating it would be to say the whole story and, more importantly, how it made us feel/think. At least I take some solitude in feeling like there are many people like me who want to be that island for others. People like me who would rather cut the small talk and dive into your childhood and the story of your first love.

This life is crazy and painful. I come from a position of privilege in many ways. But I do believe that many of us have more than what we present, and maybe more in common than we’d care to admit. I will never understand those who seem fulfilled with creature comforts and connections based on iced latte’s and shopping. Relationships based on relational dependency and never knowing the man behind the curtain. I do judge that, while simultaneously wondering what made them that way and wanting to crack that shell and see the pearl.

Maybe there is no pearl in some of these shells and that’s a possibility. Maybe that bully is just an asshole and doesn’t have some deep backstory. Some humans may not have depth. Some stories may not be layered and interesting. But I happen to believe that they mostly are, and it is all about being that safe person and putting in the time to allow those tightly coiled petals to expand out into bloom. And maybe the rest of them are on reality TV or aiming for a life of fame and wealth without depth, and those are the stories that bore and pass me by. Thankfully. That is where I am a judgy gossip, and I will enjoy my iced latte discussing it like a common mean girl. I’m not that evolved.