consciousness

The problem with becoming aware of everything  - of your actions and the actions around you and what you do and what you say and how you place your arms here, there, on your hips or folded across your chest - is that you're suddenly self-conscious and bloop sorry what was that again -- something about 'confidence'?

For some reason I've always thought that having awareness is a good thing. Knowledge is power, and what better knowledge than the knowledge of your life and yourself and your surroundings?

But as I've grown to become more 'knowledgeable' and conscious to how people react to the things I say and the way I act, I've sunk deeper into myself and am chronically feeling as if I'm growing inwards rather than out at the world.

I preferred to be ignorant to the way people nervously but politely laugh or subtly glance at each other when I swear or crack a dirty joke or say something inappropriate (which I find funny, of course). Except I don't find it funny any more because you don't find it funny and neither does she and that comment didn't get a 'like' and that joke didn't get a laugh and -- I'm sorry I think it'd be better if I just stayed quiet from now on.

I don't know how to stand when I'm around new people or people I don't know very well. I speak too loud and too fast and I come on too strong and my mouth moves ahead of my brain and I'm not enunciating enough and whoops sorry that just slipped out (It didn't even make any sense, grammatically or logically) my god Vicky what the fuck are you even on about just stop please

(They already thought you were weird enough and now look what you've done!)

(You made it worse!)

But really, what are my arms doing, I can't cross my arms because I've read in all those magazines that crossing your arms when you're talking to someone means that you shut yourself off from them and it makes them subconsciously think that you're not interested, so I guess that's out. How about on your hips - no, now you just look like a beat-down mother chastising her five year old for not picking up his toys. I wish I could just dangle them on my sides but that feels so uncomfortable and unnatural even though that's the natural way to hold your arms in the first place.

I hate being perpetually afraid of awkward silences because they always cause me to fill the quiet with some stupid story that no one is interested in, with an unsatisfying ending and no punchline.

The problem with becoming aware of everything is that you end up not wanting to be aware of anything at all.