They always say that artists are more sensitive than other people right? (Who is they, though?) They say that artistic bent makes you more of an empath, more in touch with your emotions, yet less able to control them. I can say with relative comfort that I fall into this category. I'm a writer and I'm an emotional mess a lot of the time. Whatever. It is what it is, and I'm okay with who I am. Mostly. But occasionally, I'll listen to what I'm saying, or I'll listen to my thoughts, and all of a sudden, I'm like, "Shut UP, you self-absorbed douchebag! No one CARES!" When I share this emotion with my confidantes (E, RB, my sis), they invariably tell me I'm way too hard on myself and that I'm not self absorbed. E generally tells me, in fact, that I'm not self-absorbed enough. But I really don't know that that's true. I talk about myself A LOT. And I mean, yea, I'm a natural storyteller, and storytellers tell stories about what they know and I know me, so...yea. But, still. I catch myself sometimes talking to my sister on the phone and I've yakked about my own day for like 20 minutes. I mean...WTF?! But then, I do also have friends and family in my life who, when I talk to them, I do more of the listening. So, maybe it all evens out? I don't know.
Anyway, another part of this "sensitivity" and "self-absorption" question is...I'm just SO sensitive to whatever's going on in my life. I get so stressed out over stuff that other people would barely register. I turn the smallest things into HUGE catastrophic events. My mother calls me The Agony and The Ecstacy...and it's TRUE. I can't even argue.
As a result, when I read blogs, I tend to gravitate to blogs by people who are surviving ACTUAL hardship. I find them so inspiring. They're as brave and positive and full of life as I wish I were. (Or at least as I wish I were at times because I do think I can be brave and positive...sometimes.) I've linked to some of these blogs in my sidebar. Two of the blogs are by people who lost their spouses to cancer and are raising small children on their own. I don't know either of these people, yet they are both inspirations to me on a daily basis.
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