CSI: My Trash Does Not Define Me

 
I used to watch a lot of crime shows. My second year of grad school I became completely addicted to CSI and I would come home after 12+ hour days and watch three episodes back to back on my couch (with a box of Cheez-Its, which led to lots of bad things, but that’s for another post). I would wonder what my “left-behind” belongings (if I was murdered, obviously), would say about me. I always loved hearing how much someone could learn about a person by what they found simply from the trash in their house.
 
Jennelle sometimes used fake nails from CVS, she clearly cared about her appearance – but not too much as these only cost $6. It also looks like she really loved cheese, there are about 100 cheese wrappers here – but all light varieties so she is likely health conscious too. There are a number of magazines here that don’t even look like they’ve been flipped through – she’s likely too busy to waste time with junk mail…
 
And the list would go on and on.
 
This wonderful pastime of mine was truly the result of being completely preoccupied with what people might be thinking about me at any given time. Now, before that sounds entirely self-centered and narcissistic, this was actually fear-based. This mostly started around my body – comparing my body to every other female and wondering if ‘they’ thought I was fat. Was I fatter than them? What did they think I was eating, drinking, etc… At some point it seemed this way of thinking expanded into all areas of my life – to a debilitating degree.
 
I would be on the train alone and wondered what people thought of what I was doing, wearing, etc. I’d feel a yearning to shout WHO I was at any moment. I wanted THEM to know that I was more than the moment they caught me in – good or bad. I wanted to be honest and not a piece of a person.
 
And I still catch myself with this mentality from time to time…
 
At the grocery store when I am alone, I want to stop other moms who are with their kids, looking completely exasperated, staring at me jealous of my solo trip – and tell them I get it.
 
At the beach alone with a trunk full of kid’s toys but no kids, I want to share the toys with the kids parked next to me so the parents know, I am them.
 
When I’m alone in public, on the phone, in a store, I want to tell everyone – I am not alone, I have the best love you could ever dream of. And she’s always with me.
 
I want to tell everyone every aspect of my life when it’s really completely unnecessary.
 
So I’ve learned to refrain. And trust that whatever piece you see of me you know is just a slice in that moment. And the thing is, I have to trust that that is the way everyone else thinks. Why? Because that is the way I think.
 
I never question the people I see. I enjoy the moments I witness or share. I never spend my time wondering who else those people are – so why would anyone waste their time worrying about who else I am. And I don’t mean “waste” as in no one should care, but that of course there are just so many unknowns about a person, so many unseen factors. You can’t learn them all, no matter how much time you have.
 
When I finally realized that I enjoy the beauty in the moments I see in others, and that I never analyze it beyond that – I decided that no one was analyzing me either. I realize that may not be entirely true, but I don’t care. I don’t want to worry another minute about what someone else might think about my character from one chance encounter. I know I cannot be defined by one moment in time. And neither can anybody else.
 
So now I would tell CSI that when I die they should go read my blogs, look at the pictures with my family, check the songs on my jPod… That my trash does not define me, and you don’t know me from what I have left behind in any dumpster.