I want to be welcome, not just tolerated

As I continue to walk to the tightrope of alienating people who read my blog, I feel that I should move to feelings of being welcome or otherwise.

I'm not sure if this is something that preoccupies me more than other people (and, I suspect that if it does, this might have some grounding in my relatively uncomfortable experience of the 6th form at school), but I often worry about how people perceive me and whether or not I fit in in a given situation.

I've often thought about the dislocation between how we are and how we seem. You only need to see a video of yourself to feel self-conscious (an interesting phrase, when you think about it) and to gain an awareness that your thoughts may be translated into your facial expressions with unexpected results. I remember seeing a video of myself that had been taken on Christmas day a couple of years ago. I was in the front room of my grandparents' house in Cardiff, and was probably in a pretty good mood, surrounded by people I love. But as I looked at my face on that screen, I realised just how bloody moody I must look to other people. I don't want my face to convey this when I'm in repose, as it almost certainly isn't the case. Nervous, maybe, moody, no.

From this thought I move to thinking about how people close to me interpret these things, my face and my body's gestures. I am often a bit uncomfortable in my body. I don't quite know what to do with it sometimes, where should I put my hands?!. What if the person that people know and like or dislike isn't me at all. There's a 'me' beneath these layers, but what if the translation isn't working; what if the accidents and the substance don't match? What if people love me not for who I am but for who they think I am? I write this without irony or self-regard, I hasten to add.

There was a party at Luigi's house on Saturday. I felt a mixture of nervousness and acceptance. New people there, who I didn't know, put me on edge. Nevertheless, having a decent number of friends together (as if I can actually prove either way that they're my friends - I suppose this is where faith comes in!) gave me a very significant feeling of acceptance and wellbeing. It felt good to be there. I probably could have enjoyed the party just as much without the cushion of tequila, and that's important. People taking or leaving you on your own merits (even *if* they're a second-hand interpretation) is a novelty and a luxury I just didn't have until I left school.

Feeling 'at home' is an incredibly important part of this existence, and I aim to learn to recognise it as much as I recognise its opposite.