I misinterpret simple statements. Well, I guess they are ‘supposed’ to be simple statements. But to me they aren’t. Because nothing is simple. I don’t plan it that way—the complexity of my world and my thoughts. It just is, like I just am.

I have learned and relearned that I do to people what I do to my world. And the process isn’t so much ‘doing’ as ‘being.’ I am in a natural state of observation and puzzle-claiming. I am taking piece after piece, some robot-like creature created to decipher, interpret, and solve. And I solve people. Not on purpose or with intention, but more so quite subconsciously, at an interior level, mysterious to even me. I cannot help myself. My actions are akin to breathing, or whatever tells my heart to beat.

I respond to my environment as a detective on the search, the continual search for clues. And in so seeing another human being remark in a particular way, the particulars must be sorted.

I don’t lack the keen ability to decipher social clues and what-have-you. But I do have the over-exaggerated, hyper-mode-chip of discernment that bursts open everything and transforms what is in appearance a simple-nothing—a passing comment, a just meandering—into towering depths of possibility.

I ponder and dissect my own actions, self-correcting in my mind, and teaching myself to do better. I am the way I am, but many times I don’t quite like the way I am. I like me. I even love me, mostly, but I despise the way I work in this world in various moments. By despise I mean I want to change the representation and presentation of said self to better blend in and have a neutral and somewhat positive effect on my environments. By despise I mean I hate in a way that summons up thoughts of constant seeming ‘failures,’ thusly labeled by others, and digested by me as truth.

No matter how much I try, in my exceedingly building efforts, I manage to blunder to no end. I can’t much stop myself from bursts of truth-tellings, or processing delight, or fact-after-fact of the whys and hows of things, and situations, and even people.

I coach me. I truly do. Before and after discourse; however brief or so-perceived ‘minor,’ I beseech the person within this person to be calm, to leave space in the conversation, to not be too logical, to not critique.

And so it goes that each encounter is a great risk to me, and a great stretch of energy exertion: the coaching beforehand, the coaching afterwards, the coaching during. And all the traveling fragments attempted to be gathered.

Always I am wondering what my friend thinks, what he or she is deciphering, regarding my input and approach. And always I am that absent judge, pulling apart the pieces of me, and examining each on their own, in hopes of finding the missing part, the flaw, the inadequacy, so that I might self-correct, and pull myself back into the good graces of the one.

I over-think each and every thing I hear. This goes back to the over-analysis and misinterpretation factor, but it’s deeper than that. I am hearing a symphony of analogies in my mind within minor fractions of conversing.

I am jumping back and forth, reviewing the very rules of my conduct, the rules of his conduct, and the way I ought respond in a manner that is precise, non-judgmental, factual, empathetic, and keen.

I am pressuring myself to deliver the best of what is, instead of partaking in a natural flow of response and conjecture.

I know not how to simply be and take in what is said without wanting to know what is said in exactness, and wanting to respond to what was said with the same elements of truth. I need to be this truth-bearing one who gives out what is authentic, even as I get completely bewildered in regards to what is my truth.

I fear that I am being manipulative, that I am being selfish, that I am not being who I am meant to be. And this doesn’t have to be anything complex from the observer’s standpoint. This happens, this way in which I fall into thoughts inside myself, from the simplest of requests and from the simplest of comments.

I need not be exposed to anything more than one word to become lost in a galaxy of confusion. I know not how to be at times.

Through trial, I have learned to trust who I am, and to trust I am trying my best, and that others’ interpretations are naught. However, this does not carry over always. Sometimes, I somehow think a one is the end-all of who I am. I think what is said IS.

I am learning to accept my mind is eternally blossoming. That I am the seasons, the flowers, the rivers. That I am instant knowledge and instant chaos. I am learning this mirror to the universe named ‘US.’ And I call out to the all within me.