For what it’s worth …

My name is not really Ash.

Ash is a name I took from my birth month in the Celtic tree calendar.

There is a certain amount of freedom in pseudonyms. Perhaps I am paranoid, as my friend likes to tease, but I do fear repercussions in life. Honesty is not, contrary to what I would like to believe, always the best policy, and if I must stay in the shadows in order to survive, then I’ll just have to adjust to the dark.

I have many friends and acquaintances, but there are very few with whom I can truly be myself. It is a rather lonely existence. In the workplace, I am a chameleon. I adapt; I blend in. I smile and laugh and joke. I act. Those around me don’t know that it is mostly a façade. In so many ways, I am alien. I sometimes feel so alone that it is a dull pain in my chest.

When I do find someone I feel I can trust, someone who would understand, I am so overjoyed that I am misconstrued, or else I become overwhelming. Or else I worry that I will be misunderstood, or that I am smothering or annoying, and then suddenly I find I have driven them away. In trying to make things better, I usually make things worse. In trying to share with a friend, I find myself alone. You would think that one who can feel others as I do would be immune by such things, but sadly no. If I can feel others’ feelings like a flicker of a breeze, my own emotions are a gale by comparison, blotting out all else, including reason.

When I was a teen, I used to fantasize about living on top of a mountain somewhere in a small cabin with nothing but trees and water surrounding me. As an adult, I understand that it would be too lonely an existence, but a T1 Internet connection would probably do the trick.

Somehow I doubt my husband would understand, however. Even with high-speed net access.