When I was sixteen, my head was in the clouds for days on end. I was somewhat of an "enigma" (yes I'm calling myself an enigma / I have been told in the past that I'm hard to read and a bit of an enigma or rather I was described as "mysterious"), if you ask me. Because I didn't express myself very much. I didn't voice my opinions either. Maybe it was because I was still young and I had opinions, but didn't know how to articulate them. I just remember that I thought a lot about my future, my goals and interests in life, but I was also going through some teenage angst, which made me inexcusably ungrateful and pathetic. Yes, I can say that I was pretty pathetic. On top of that, I was an academic underachiever - which made everything worse. But it's all in the past and I have definitely grown up a lot in the last eight years - I almost feel like I'm a different person, but in a really good way.
I'm writing this post because I somewhat feel the need to explain, but at the same time, I don't owe anyone any explanation about my openness and how shamelessly uncensored my writing is. In a way, I want to explain, because it might offer you a better understanding of my intentions and thought process, but at the same time, I think everyone has their own reasons and it's their own prerogative to do whatever they want, since the internet gives us this platform to do so.
Since I use to be a closed book, I still would write them, but those thoughts remained private for years. It was to preserve those adolescent ideas of the world and to protect myself from potential ridicule and scrutiny. But having kept those thoughts to myself, I was able to begin to develop and expand my learned ideas of life and the world. It allowed myself the chance to become rather heightened in terms of my observation of people around me. I guess this made me the writer I am.
I guess I started to really open up for the first time in 2007, when I moved to London. I went through this transitional and drastic change in environment, therefore, it made me feel the need to write openly about my emotions and observations. It felt liberating to openly discuss my melancholy state of nostalgia. From then on, I started to write very openly and in detail, whilst keeping names anonymous, and staying very true to describing my emotions. In 2008, I experienced heartbreak for the first time in my life, thus I fell into a deep, dark state of forlorn, depression, self deprecation and pity. Yes, see how open I am right now? It feels great!
After that summer, I became increasingly open about my emotions - I started to really wear my heart proudly on my sleeve. Very proudly. But I only really wrote about it. Obviously, I spoke to my closest friends about it, but I mostly wrote about it as a sense of stress release. This is when I discovered that writing is truly the best form of therapy for me. Whenever I felt hurt or heartbroken, I would write and it would relieve me of any heartbreak and disappointment. So I've been writing openly about my emotions for a while now and I've just realized that I've finally become an open book. Back at boarding school, I had wallflower tendencies, but now I wear my heart on my sleeve with pride and dignity.
A few years ago, I was very non communicative during an old relationship, which ended up affecting the quality and longevity of the relationship, but I learned a great lesson from it. If I'm in a relationship, I have to be open to communicate my feelings and just be god damn honest. I'm here to be open about my thoughts and I am very proud to be able to articulate and share my thoughts in such a shameless and fearless manner. I know I may come off a little crazy and off putting, but I just wanted to explain why there are perks to being an open book. I want to be proud of this and I think you can truly be proud of yourself when you are self assured on your own accord.
Wallflower (people)
In social situations, a wallflower is a slang term used to describe shy or unpopular individuals who do not socialize or participate in activities at social events. It is most often used to describe someone who stays close to a wall and out of the main area of social activity. The term originated from ballroom dances, where the people who did not wish to dance (or had no partner) remained close to the walls of the dance hall. The wallflower, genus Erysimum, sometimes grows on old walls.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed), the first known usage of the term in this sense was in an 1820 poem entitled County Ball by Winthrop Mackworth Praed. It was originally used to refer to women, and only in the context of dances; more recently the term has been expanded to include men and other social gatherings.
The book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky is about a young boy who is a shy awkward high school freshman. In this book the term is used in a slightly different sense, but with a fairly similar meaning.
closed book
n.
A person or thing that cannot be known or understood; something unfathomable or puzzling.
be an open book
1. if a person's life is an open book, you can discover everything about it because none of the details are kept secret Like many film stars, he wants to keep his private life private - he doesn't want it becoming an open book.
2. if someone is an open book, it is easy to know what they are thinking and feeling Sarah's an open book, so you'll know right away if she doesn't like the present you've bought her.
From wallflower to open book.
