Every day, I bite my tongue–er, still my fingers on the keyboard.
I desperately want to make snarky comments, to express my frustration, to let the world know how I feel.
They’re thinly veiled criticisms, one-liners that would be sure to meet their mark.
They refer to personal habits, individual quirks, things that drive me absolutely nuts.
Things about people I love.
Things that would hurt them deeply were I to speak.
Every day, I bite my tongue.
But not because I love them.
I bite my tongue because I love me.
I don’t want to disturb the peace, to have to actually deal with the issues–the issues that I know aren’t really that important but which bug me anyway.
I don’t want to have to undo the hurt I’ve caused.
Mostly, I don’t want people to see the real, ugly me.
If I said those words out loud, you’d all know how mean, how nasty, how spiteful I can actually be. And I don’t want you to know.
I want you to see me through rose-colored glasses. I want you to perceive me as super-spiritual, practically-perfect. Sure, I’ll share my struggles, so long as they’re big existential struggles (and I have plenty of those to keep blog space filled, it seems.) But I don’t want you to see my pettiness, my unlovingness.
I bite my tongue.
I do the right thing.
But not because I love.
Because I care what people think.