I got to talking a lot more than I usually do this past weekend. Most of it being with relatives or relations that were brought to mourn someone passed away. Those few weeks of not talking back in January? I’m glad that it’s over.

	But, I was told that for some unknown reason(s) I’d gone from the quietest cousin to the most loud. My obnoxiousness level, probably the same. No one really knew why or how it happened. To be honest, I’m unsure of it as well. I do acknowledge that I am more open to conversation than I may have been in the past. I suppose the process that I subconsciously use to think about things might have changed. And there’s no doubt that more and more information has been attained over time from mixed sources. But most of it feels like it comes out naturally. And I think a lot of it has come naturally because it’s been around for a lot of my life.

	I can admit that when I was younger that I didn’t say a lot unless I truly believed that it was something that I knew would have a positive reaction to the people who would hear it. That was probably because I had a lot of negative experiences with criticism. It seemed like those criticisms piled on and I knew of no way to defend myself against them except to stay silent, like a preemptive strike or something akin to slash and burn tactics. 

	It was probably teenagehood when I started embracing more loudly the things that brought me joy, but were branded as other to peers and family members. I still kept in with popular anime, video games, and movies, but I remember being fascinated by what people considered head-y, emotional, or outlandish titles like Paranoia Agent, Threads of Fate and Oldboy. Something about them resonated with me, though I couldn’t really articulate why. And even now, it’s difficult to explain what it is about these titles appeals to me. 

	Regardless of those reasons, I became more and more entranced by them and got the regular pushback from peers and family members. I attended college and the need to be accepted renewed. My tactic was to display the oddness that people had given to me. But I still wasn’t confident in it and in a way wore it like a form of shame. The first thing that I can equate it to is studying swimming, but not actually going in the water to practice. I think that I would say outlandish things that made me stand out to my peers, but definitely nothing close to my talkativeness today, because the reactions were of shock and sometimes outrage. Probably with good reason, as I didn’t understand the delicate nature of consideration.

	Being in the creative writing program helped a lot. I was able to express those odd interests through writing. Criticism was regular and became less personal and more objective. Over time it became easier to receive criticism and focus on how to use it in a beneficial manner than to sink back to instinct and feel attacked and defend against it by staying silent.

	But after graduating, I think that I became more and more aware that it was going to be difficult making friends. There was nothing forcing new people into my path, which meant less chances to try talking. But at the same time, I was more alone and able to explore those weird interests and become confident in my knowledge of them.

	Maybe that’s where I’m at now?

	There’s obviously a lot more to my path of quiet to talkative, but this is just where my mind went. It makes sense with all of the context that I have in my head. But I know that there’s a lot of missing items. Maybe this is something that I can explore further in the future, because there can be a lot of value in seeing how you’ve progressed.

	But for now, I think I’ll focus on trying to provide you all with more fiction and prose content. After all, my work schedule will start back up soon and I want to at least have a routine down so that we can know what to expect.

	For now, stay rad!