Honestly, at this point it’s like a KNOWN THING that I’m always reading people, their non verbal cues and body language but most especially their faces. I’ve been told all my life I “somehow just know” things about people. The last 6 years or so have taught me this is how there’s a truth to that.
I won’t go into the why or how I got to be an expert at this or my theories about it. I won’t be sorry about it either even though I know it is sometimes disconcerting to people that I have this ability. I know that those who know me deepest know I do not read others to use knowledge of them in any way for their detriment or harm. I’ve lived all my life doing this as a means to know when I am safe, I understand that.
When I’m reading all the whats…..
The slightest twinge of a blink, a set in their mouth, their eyebrows, especially, and the way their eyes shift when something affects them. I see it all. I study the hell out of it all, until I know every bit. Every crease and blink is marked. And when I KNOW your face, I know.
This struck me today because I was looking at some pictures of my friends and people I love and thinking about how I used to not know any of them. Complete and total strangers, that’s what we were. Even my kids. I used to not know all these people I’ve poured my love into and now….
now I know all of their face. Every freckle and crease. Their squint. Their head tilt and what their lips in that tiny puff says and why they do that thing with their left eye when they’re thinking over something intensely. I know their posture, and what it means when their upper lip tightens or they flex their scalp muscles or do a tiny shake of their head at something someone says. When their shoulder stiffens or they take a breath out of their normal pattern or flex their hand or rotate an ankle. When they are feeling misunderstood or upset or comfortable and happy. I see it and I store it and I *know* them.
And some of them, some of these strangers who are now my people, their faces are like a home to me. The second I see them, I feel safe. I know I can be me. I know I can read them, because I dont know how to *NOT* and that I will find love and acceptance in what I read.
What a thing to experience.
This ability has, in the past, sometimes led to anxiety and fear and distrust. It’s made me *know* someone was lying without knowing about what or being able to prove it. It led to years of shutting myself down, not being able to listen to music, to losing hope. It led to feeling like I didn’t belong to anyone, to feeling rootless, lost. Alone.
At times I felt unsteady knowing I wasn’t safe but not sure how or why. I felt confused about words not matching actions. I felt the push and pull that other people couldn’t see. I felt different. Misunderstood. And lonely. It’s guided me into doing that thing where I beg people to love me as I felt them withdrawl their energies… friends, family and lovers alike. Sometimes I’ve not trusted it, this, my intuition, what I am literally seeing in your own face. And landed myself in heaps of heartbreak and abuse and neglect and pain and all other sorts of problems to solve.
What a thing to realize at 40 years old, knowing what it’s like to interact with people who make me feel seen and known and loved and safe at once, in a number more than I ever have before. There’s so many of you now. Sheesh. I am in this season I am in that I know won’t last forever. But what I can say is that I am enamored with these communities and relationships I find myself in right now. And I am so thankful. To be seen and known and still chosen and loved. And safe as Me.
rachel marie; towriteaway 