A little while back, I had posted a couple of things on Threads and Mastodon, as I had discovered or realized them about myself.

I had been meaning to do a proper blog post about them, but as it does, life got in the way. I had to take some time away from social media for a couple of days. I’ve been back a bit, but it seems that life perhaps hasn’t been getting as better as I had anticipated. I may once again need to step away, but has yet to be determined.

But, back to the reason for the post…

In recent weeks, I had been realizing things about myself, namely that the things that make me “me” tend to lean more on the side of what society would call “feminine”, and less so on the “masculine” side. Those that follow my social media might find it fairly obvious what I’m talking about. For those who may not know, some things that make up who I am:

• Fashion/style
• Empathy
• Highly emotional and sensitive

Make more sense? These really aren’t things that society would say are “masculine” traits. I’ve always felt that I am a rather unique man, because of these.

I truly believe that a lot of this self realization comes from my discovering (and resulting becoming a fan of) Taylor Swift. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about her and her music that did it. While I fully admit that I can’t personally relate to a lot of the stories that she tells in her songs, being the empath that I am, I can easily pick up and feel the joy, pain, and tears that are in her lyrics. The melodies of her songs touch and connect with my soul and my very being in ways that no other music has done. I can be overcome with joy and confidence just as easily as I can be overcome with fear and sadness, moving me to tears.

Because this post seems to be taking me everywhere, my getting my very first tattoo also seems fitting in this post. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to get a tattoo, but had no idea what I wanted. I still have no idea where I want it, or how big, but I had finally settled on the “what”. Allow me to introduce you to the symbol for empathy (yep, there is such a thing):

I have decided that I want this symbol stylized a bit, in that I want it to be in the same shade of purple as her dress on the cover of Taylor’s “Speak Now” album (as I feel that I am in my own “speak now” era, in that I’m sharing my more honest and vulnerable self). It looks like this:

In the empathy symbol, I want to have one lyric from the song “Castles Crumbling” make up what is the arm reaching from the left:

“You don’t wanna know me now”

For the arm reaching from the right, a lyric from the song “Enchanted”

“I was enchanted to meet you”

For me, it represents the two sides of myself meeting and the acceptance of myself fully. I’m not sure what I want the circle or line in the middle to comprise of yet.

It’s these sorts of things (along with so many others) that leave me questioning who I really am. Maybe it’s part of the “midlife crisis”. It’s things that I can’t really share with others, because how can I put into words to describe it, when I can’t make complete sense of it myself? How can I know whom to trust to share things like this once I DO figure it out? What will people say? Will they judge, ridicule, or accept it (I am a hopeless people-pleaser by nature, unfortunately)?

To add to it all, I’ve also been struggling with what direction and focus I want to take with life and social media. Sometimes, I feel like I’m all over the place with no focus whatsoever. Also, perhaps because I feel like I’m all over the place, I can’t seem to come up with any original or interesting content to write or post about. Because I’m also a compulsive comparer, I see and become envious of so many others that seem to have found their niche or place, and shine.

I guess the saying about a “journey fraught with peril” just might be true in this case. I know that there are others that are struggling with things like this themselves, and I recognize that, but at the same time, it still feels like I am alone.