"If I ever make a mess, I'll do anything for you..." -Sufjan

I think a part of the reason why I have the internal conflicts and struggles that I have in my life, is because I suck at Pulling Back. I'm a really bad puller-backer. It's a root in the very depths of my soul, it's intertwined in my personality, just who I am. I am great at taking it to the next level though. So that works in positive ways for me when the opportunity comes around for such an act... but pulling back? Not so much my forte. Giving slack. Letting some things slide. Taking it DOWN a notch.

Of course everyone knows I'm loud. I laugh loud, I talk loud, I'm too loud most the time. I like when dramatic things happen that seem like they only happen in movies. I've always been a very good actress because of my facial expressions and animations which are LOUD in non-verbal ways. But there are other times in one's life that one must pull back. This is when I go, oh darn. Crap. Frick. Dang it. Because I know I have a hard time doing this. I'm like.. oh here we go again. How do you pull back exactly? My difficulty with such a thing comes from my abundant desire to please people and my huge heart that I have that makes me care SO much... about everything! I just care. I couldn't try to NOT care, it's basically impossible. If it's not the person that I care about, it's the situation, the ideas and principles behind the person and the situation, the underlying form, the analysis of what is at stake, the value, the root of my cares is love. I just have so much love... I feel like sometimes I have too much love and I have nothing to do with it! That's why I treat people the way I do. Which, hopefully, makes people think of me in a positive way. I know I obviously have treated people badly, but I would also like to think that I realize my way of error and correct it showing that I really do love after all, even if I was being stupid for a while.

Anyway, commitment and loyalty are two big issues I have with "pulling back". I think the two go hand in hand, so I can't really say the other without putting an 'and' and the other with it. Once I am grounded in strong commitment for something, or someone, I am flat-out loyal to it, or them. It never really goes away. But then the situation changes and I am forced to cut back a little. I was used to the level of commitment I was at. I was used to the loyalty that makes me do other things that also increase that commitment... like doing nice things for a person, serving them, making them feel good, cheering them up, treating them like a treasure.

Um... so anyway, I just have a hard time lessening that sense of commitment and loyalty. How do you pull back? I suck at it. And my writing reflects this! Yeah! My english prof here wrote all these comments on my first essay for her class saying that I was "overwriting", that sometimes if I just pulled back a little it would actually make it better writing. And I was just like ugh, you've got to be kidding me! It's just not me, pulling back and all. It's not me. And when I did pull back in my writing for our latest paper, I felt like it was terrible because I knew I would have much rather taken it to a higher intensity... I dunno... I wouldn't have "pulled back" so much.

I really do suck at pulling back. This is kind of a problem at times! like now.