A deep breath

Ah I'm up and down and up again. And always it's the presence of friends which gives me perspective and lets me put aside the more wretched and unworthy thoughts. I relaxed in neutral ground with someone who knows and cares about the other important people in my life on Monday. We spoke of it and then, having acknowledged it, moved on and just chatted. Tonight I was invited to share tapas and conversation with an old and good friend who provides closeness but no tension. Tomorrow I do much the same with another, newer and rather different friend. This is exactly what I need right now and I'm reminded of that looking back on an email I sent only last night in a brain fizz of suspicion and self-doubt that was only partially justified.

I'm fascinated to watch how the way I position myself changes, even with regards to old friends. I change, whether physically or emotionally or socially or in my overall perception of myself and the context in which I'm viewed, either by myself or others shifts and that in turn affects other perceptions. More dubiously, how I perceive myself can be affected by how I *think* other people view me. Even more dubiously, when I behave differently as a result others' perception of me *does* change. So some things become self-fulfilling insecurities. I don't for one moment think that this makes me special no matter how immediately fundamental and encompassing some of my brain wibbles feel at the time. I am my own experiment, my own project and sometimes my own entertainment.

I guess this relates back to a post I made earlier about what remains fundamentally me now that so much has been changed or recontextualised. I still feel like me. I still think I have some fundamental values and views that remain essentially unaltered but how much of "me" does that represent? I am now, in my own perception of myself, female, trans, queer, single, sensual but not especially sexual, shy and if I was to put more thought into it than the amount of time this takes to type probably a host of other things that I wouldn't have described as being "me" a couple of years ago.

I think I mostly like me or at least will once I get to know me. I have infuriating shortcomings and quirks mostly relating to my ability to not do things which I know have to be done, sometimes for no apparent reason. I'm also sure that I have the opportunity here to become what I want to be rather than simply letting random and poorly understood influences shape me as they have in the past. What do I admire that I want to incorporate into myself? What do I want to discard? And as I've touched on in the past how much of will be affectation and how much is genuinely going to be me?

It's far too late to think about this now...sleep and work and more chatter tomorrow and I'll see what the hindbrain works out when I'm not looking.