Molt

Who am I to you? Who are you to your co-worker? Your friends? Your lover? Are you the same, or are you different? Many shades of the same color? Yourself, yet not at all?

Ever since my trip to Europe, there is no line. There is no question of truth. No almost truths, or kind of truths. To people at work, to my friends, to my family, within and without myself, there is only one truth.

It was a skill I didn't know I was missing, and as a result, I had never considered it something I WANTED.

And then it happened, without choice, or thought, or consideration. Like a recently molted cicada, I became one. Transparent to others, and most importantly, myself.

I was walking home with my good friend Andy last night. We were celebrating his birthday, and talking about how happy we were to be friends. At one point he said, you make me laugh. But more importantly, what you see is what you get.

What a compliment that was. True. And hard. And real. Living an undivided life, and taking a unanimous stance as a singular entity. A person. Madeline Duffy. ONE and ONLY... I realized he was right. You get what you see.

The cards are down. The armor is off. Take it or leave it. Love it or hate it. I'm me. My interactions aren't riddled with personality shifts or exaggerations and suppressions of who I am. I just am.

To get here I've had to realize alot of really hard truths about myself that were easy to hide. I had to realize alot of truths about others that I wasn't ready to see.

So maybe that's part of what its all about. Molting. Stripping down all the fallacies. Combining the different selves until you are content with 'one'self. Being yourself for who you are, being transparent for the whole world to see. Breaking it down to the simple truths... what you see is what you get.