They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, but that is certainly untrue in my case. I've had people, strangers come up to me when I was in high school and ask if I was okay. The immediate thought that sprang to mind in that scenario was, "Do you see tears running down my face?" Unfortunately for me, my everyday face, neither happy nor sad, just standing there, my face leads people to believe that something terrible just happened to me. Normally, I am a very happy person but my content face looks anything but content. Curse my down-turned eyes! It also doesn't help that my bottom lip pulls the pad of my chin too far north so that from the side I look like Alfred Hitchcock's long-lost daughter.
(I told you)
When I was a teenager I hardly ever looked at boys in the eye, afraid that they might see how transparent I was. I was afraid my eyes would betray my perpetually hushed heart. I listened to my heart, probably more than most and probably more than I should have but I couldn't let anyone else know.
Perhaps, deep inside I am a narcissistic person and that's why I'm so hard on myself, because if I let myself believe I'm a good person or I'm good at doing things then I fear I've become too much of my true self. I remember working on a writing prompt for one of my teaching methods classes. The prompt asked, "What are you an expert in?" I distinctly remember I was having a bad day so I wrote, "Nothing." I felt I was neither good nor bad at a particular skill I had learned, but certainly not an expert. Expert to me implies, exorbitant amounts of wisdom or prowess for said skill. Does anyone else ever feel this way, or am I the only one that thinks too much about what others might think? Which in turn, brings me back to the thought, I must be narcissistic then. I might as well embrace it.
What negative character flaw do you have that you wish you could either embrace or suppress?
