I had a minor epiphany / remembrance / rediscovery last night about why I don’t speak up for myself. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot this year and also my whole life.

Yesterday I was out eating sushi with ladybae, and some grown crusty white woman was standing between us and the next table having a very long, very animated conversation with the most extra woman I have ever met in my life*. And in the heat of their conversation, she was essentially putting her ass on my elbow. Literal physical contact. And no matter how much I moved my elbow, she was moving deeper and deeper into my personal space.

And I didn’t say anything. I didn’t do anything, except to make increasingly gif-worthy faces to ladybae about the casual privilege that white people continue to exert into my space throughout my entire existence – until she politely spoke up and asked the woman to move.

So we deconstructed this a little bit later, and I told ladybae that I don’t know how to regulate my tone the way that she was able to. And I realized that, as sweet and kind and bend-over-backwards people-pleasing as I can appear when I put on my impersonal public self, it is mostly because I can never modulate between that and Absolute No Chill Next Level when I’m upset. I had a conscious thought in the restaurant that if I opened my mouth, something crazy and 100% Too Much would come out (like seriously just mid-thought screaming, when you think you’re saying something acceptable but everyone in the room cocks an eyebrow), so I didn’t say anything.

I have memories of being very young and deeply regretting misspoken words and off-kilter tone for months and years with deep shame and eventually making the conscious decision to always think before I speak. Working at it for a long time. Developing a pause.

So now I’m stuck at the other end of the spectrum, constantly holding my breath.

*Mrs. Extra later interrupted our conversation to ask ladybae – regarding her ginger – “You’re don’t eat it?!!”, and then, after hesitant assent from my buddy, proceeded to grab it wasabi-and-all off lb’s plate with a full fist and it was actually INSANE??????