meshing, a singular note

you can't see what you know most intimately

all houses have a distinct smell that becomes invisible to the people living in them. perhaps after a vacation, returning home, you might try and discover your own scent by catching it by surprise. to the visitor, it is unmistakable, and unplaceable: whatever dish soap grandma uses, pet in the carpet and the detergent to cover it, stewed onions, boys’ lacrosse bags, incense burned silently at night, crumbling spackle, slightly mildewed laundry, occupant odor all meshing together to create one note: the Larson’s, the Smith’s, the Baudelaire’s.

there may be parts of your personality that are entirely invisible to you but definitive and palpable to everyone who meets you. these are parts of yourself that you will never know, and yet you know so intimately well you cannot distinguish what exactly they are. like the smell of a house, the factors of your personality mingle together to create one unique impression - and, likewise, reveal the activities and beliefs that take place inside, even when no one is watching.

we can’t control the aspects invisible to us. and even if we could, we also can’t control people’s perceptions. if you were to really step into someone’s shoes and experience life as they do, it would be so radically different from your own framework that it would be like taking psychedelics. so, even if you were to plead with your friends and loved ones, “reveal to me what you really think of me!” it would be impossible to describe, even if they tried to be perfectly mean and honest.

people who appear to be at the most peace seem to accept their many facets. at times, they are strong and weak, lazy and brave, loving and wrathful, loyal and dishonest. they do not allow themselves to be narrowly defined; they move through the many shades of what it means to be a person. if we want to help ourselves feel whole we must reject summarization and personal branding. we have to be okay with our many roles and that rarely will two people see us the same.

nobody is a collection of adjectives, a star sign, a miniature collection of the Meyer-briggs alphabet (ENFP ITNP IJKL), a diagnosis, a love language or attachment style - even if these rules of thumb help us better navigate the world, it draws us further away from real understanding.

this is what it means when we say “people contain multitudes.” to contain multitudes, to be many things and not just narrowly one, or two, is to rebel against the tendency to flatten or simplify each other. it’s an attractive idea to distill yourself. to say with some authority “this is who I am.” but this is a lie by omission. it’s not possible for us to know.