This is, hopefully, the final installment in my (also hopefully extremely limited) series, “Why Am I Like This?”
Writers are cautioned not to overuse exclamation points. If we must use them at all, we are told to ration them. No Serious Writer™ uses more than three exclamation points per novel. I use three before breakfast. No Serious Writer™ would dare rely on punctuation to do the emotional heavy lifting. No Serious Writer™ would employ exclamation points unless something truly calls for excitement. I have been alive for some time, and few things ever truly call for excitement. Except cake.
But some of us are Excitement Folks. I myself am a human exclamation point. Out of the house, my natural register becomes Jack Black impersonating Judy Garland while spinning plates. I greet people like we’ve survived a maritime disaster together. I smile as if paid by the watt.
Mind you, this is not my natural state, but it is often my public one.
I have long aspired to become awoman of repose. I have tried, truly, to be someone who radiates calm, who says “hmm” instead of “OH MY GOD, YESSSSS,” who does not tell your dog I love him the very first time I meet him.
Alas, my attempts at composure resemble Animal from The Muppets being shot out of a confetti cannon directly into a line of cymbals.
Women of repose give the impression that they read Smithsonian Magazine in the bathtub. I give the impression that I clap when planes land.
Enthusiasm is a peculiar human response to the otherwise bleak recognition of existence. It manifests as sudden bursts of unsolicited and often alarming cheerfulness. Enthusiasm is socially contagious but has an inconvenient half-life of twelve minutes and a regrettable tendency to startle normal people.
For a while, I managed something approaching serenity. My public self finally matched my private one. My resting heart rate was no longer espresso.
Then came Zoom, a technology that brought people together by separating them entirely.
Staring into a camera instead of human faces, it’s hard to catch social cues unless someone types LOL or You are a dork in the chat. Since we’re all deprived of feedback, I overcompensate as speaker and listener. I nod violently and try to show you that I’M WITH YOU AND I LIKE YOUR VIBE AND ALSO I’M TURNING MY CAMERA OFF BECAUSE I’M SHOVING AN ENTIRE COSTCO TUXEDO CAKE IN MY FACEHOLE AND YOU DESERVE BETTER BUT I’M STILL HERE NODDING PROMISE.
We can call that enthusiasm. Or nightmare fuel. Whatever.
Then the meeting ends, and I power down like a droid in Star Wars.
Is this growth or regression? Is my at-home, off-camera restraint maturity the real me, or just battery depletion? Am I even seeing myself accurately? Because, honestly, the only time I see myself is on Zoom.
Both versions of me feel real, but they can’t coexist. I’m trying to find the midpoint between “!!!” and “…”
Maybe an em dash, that modern-day punctuatio non grata.
Definitely not a period though, because I prefer to do things not with a whimper but (wait for it!) with an interrobang.
Jackie Pick 