The following poem was originally published on January 28th, 2023. It will be brand new to most of you. 💜
I change for you. Did you know that? It's not a choice or a strategy. It's instinct. A natural shift. A redirect in programming. One that alters my color to fit your palette. Why do I do it? To make your life easier. To add to what you already have. To enhance it if I'm able. And willing. I'm always willing. Am I too willing? It happens like seasons. Rapidly turning seasons. Or weather. Curated weather for your atmosphere. You're welcome! I didn't always know what it was, but I could feel it happening. Upon entering a space it would grip me. A need to change. To morph into a shape not altogether different from my original, but unique. A shade of myself. A fragment of fiction embedded in the truth. Because few can handle the full truth. All of my colors. That's a lot, even for me. So, I mix them. Separate them. Cover some. Expose others. In an effort to blend seamlessly into your background. If I make it that far, I can start to absorb. Not just your colors, but your voice, too. I can learn it. Let it brand itself, like a font. One I can use to write you a message and send it to you. To make you laugh. Or ache. To lift you up. To shine a hot light on what's good about you in the hope some warmth will reflect back onto me. Cold blooded as I am. Is it painful? Sometimes. But not so painful I don't seek out the pain again. It's like torn muscle or tolerance to poison. The more I change the easier changing becomes and the longer I can remain changed. Sometimes I make mistakes. I enter your orbit wearing the wrong shade of me, and I get kicked out, passed over, knocked down. To attempt a color recalibration mid-fall is futile, so I simply stop ... ... and float. I return to my base shade. Ash gray. Mousy brown. Colorless. I retreat. Until the stump of my broken tail can mend itself and regrow. I crush easily. I fall hard. I cling to the environments I most want to occupy and I change for them. Again and again. I'm not a pretender. It's all me. Rough scales. Soft belly. Quiet lips. Wicked tongue. Sharp claws. Keen eyes. Fiery heart. Busy mind. Just not all at once. I make myself the most loveable to you, so you don't have to try hard to love me. Isn't that nice? For a while maybe. But then I fuck it up and have to start over. From scratch. From gray. From ash. And while I'm shedding my failure and regenerating my thickest skin, I cling to those who love me for all my colors. Those who have witnessed them. One at a time. And all at once. For them I don't change. They don't want me to. On the spectrum of love, they are as close to me as you are far away.
How do you like me now?
Something completely shocking and not shocking at all happened last week. I wrote a post, fueled by frustration around the topic of attention-seeking habits and how they’re damaging my creative flow, and that post received more attention than anything I’ve written in the last two years.
Did I see this coming?
And what did I learn from this experiment?
You
like
me
ANGRY. 😱
If I’m strictly analyzing metrics, scouting avenues for growth, and fulfilling the desires of the almighty marketplace, I should latch onto this angle and milk it for all it’s worth. Right?
Here’s the thing, though.
I don’t like being angry. It doesn’t make me feel powerful. It makes me feel weak and sad and tired. But I can’t deny the fact that it helps me get shit done. And it gets me and my writing some much-MUCH-desired attention. So …
I chose to replay chameleon (one of my oldest and least engaged with posts) today, because if memory serves (and it always does) I wrote this poem in lieu of an angry rant. I was having a hard time swallowing the Kryptonitic Kool-Aid of the “authentic self” movement. The call to show up as “just myself” in all these new and terrifying places, as if it was … that simple.
It’s not that simple. And frankly, neither am I.
Here’s a snippet from that unpublished rant. It’s the end part where I manage to come around the other side of my discontent and find a more mindful way forward.
This exposition isn’t designed to make anyone question their own voice or how they share it with others. I’ll use my husband’s least favorite buzz expression here and say, “you do you.”
But for me to do me, I need to use a lot of voices. And I need to occupy a lot of skins. And wear different colors. And I hope that doesn’t make you feel like you’re not getting the “real” me.
You are. I promise. The real me is just a multitude. And a scaredy cat.
And … kind of a weirdo.
So, if you’re ever wanting to offer this color-changing weirdo some encouragement about how she moves around in the universe, you can skip the “be your authentic self” stuff, and just say, “do your best.”
“Follow your heart” works well, too.
But not “follow your dreams.”
I hate that one. 😊
Thanks for reading Stock Fiction. To those of your onboarding today, welcome! And to those of you who like me whether I’m angry, sad, hopeful, tired, feisty, or completely off the rails, please accept this overzealous hug of gratitude.
Up next …
Episode 4 of Talk Fiction, my super engaging
friendship showpodcast where I sneakily get interesting people I like to have long, in depth conversations with me under the guise of self-promotion and professional growth. This week I talk with soon-to-be-traditionally-published author, Amran Gowani, about the beauty and business of novel writing.
On the horizon …
An honest-to-goodness “letter” exchange with my most favorite person in Paris, France.
As you like it.
Thanks for repeating this one, or I’d have missed it. Not everyone can keep a metaphor going without wearing it out, and you did it splendidly.
“Wear hats.” And costumes.
Thank you, Meg… there is a chameleon in all of us, and rightly so. It is a piece of our survival kit. You brought light to that cornerstone… 😊