{"id":3645,"date":"2025-05-30T02:38:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T02:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/?p=3645"},"modified":"2025-06-03T14:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T14:04:14","slug":"the-note-that-found-me-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/the-note-that-found-me-first\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don\u2019t Want to Be the Version of Me That Gets Applause"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

People liked her. She was agreeable. Reliable.
Great in a group photo and even better at conflict avoidance. If someone needed emotional CPR, she\u2019d do it with a smile and a spreadsheet.
People said she had boundaries. What they didn\u2019t know was that she\u2019d just stopped asking for anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That version of me could defuse a room in ten words or less.
She knew how to tuck her needs under the rug, flatten every reaction, and leave a conversation looking like it never scratched her.
Clean. Contained. Pleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But pleasant is a trap. It\u2019s how you disappear and get rewarded for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no trophy for honesty, just fewer people texting you back.
No one says, \u201cWow, I love how messy and emotionally transparent you are.<\/em>\u201d
They say, \u201cYou\u2019re so calm<\/em>,\u201d and hand you their chaos like you\u2019re a storage unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started calling it maturity. It sounded better than what it really was:
detachment dressed in beige<\/em>.
I wasn\u2019t grounded.
I was muted. A well-framed silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People clapped. So I kept clapping for myself, too. That\u2019s what scared me most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One morning, I caught myself sending a perfectly crafted, measured message that made someone else feel better and made me feel like drywall. I\u2019d deleted the part where I told the truth. Again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I asked a question that stuck: “What if I stop making myself digestible?<\/em><\/strong>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No more airbrushed reactions. No more sentences revised for palatability.
I started noticing how often I reached for words like “it\u2019s okay<\/em>,” when it wasn\u2019t. Or “I understand,<\/em>” when I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out, I didn\u2019t need better coping strategies. I needed to stop disappearing inside the ones I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a version of me that doesn\u2019t overexplain.
She doesn\u2019t rehearse her texts or apologize for crying.
She\u2019s inconvenient and honest and shows up with her feelings still attached.
She\u2019s not palatable. But she\u2019s real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the one I\u2019m learning to bring to the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you like your people agreeable and quiet, you might want to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not your neat little story arc. I\u2019m the footnote you didn\u2019t see coming.
And I don\u2019t need applause.
I just need not to vanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People liked her. She was agreeable. Reliable. Great in a group photo and even better at conflict avoidance. If someone needed emotional CPR, she\u2019d do it with a smile and a spreadsheet. People said she had boundaries. What they didn\u2019t know was that she\u2019d just stopped asking for anything. That version of me could defuse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52,67],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-learnings","7":"category-reflections","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"vasudha","author_link":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/author\/vasudha\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3645"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3668,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645\/revisions\/3668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}