For as long as I can remember, I’ve worn my heart on my face. Joy, love and contentment glimmer in my eyes even when I attempt to hide my smile. The lump in my throat when I’m hurt shows up in the set of my lips and the hoarseness of my voice. My hands move more when I’m excited and shake into fists in anger.
But over the past two years, I’ve recognized that I’m ashamed of my involuntary displays of humanity.
I can distinctly recall a time when I embraced the world with open arms. I used to wave at strangers. I used to walk into rooms and talk to people and not be so acutely aware of what made me weird or different. I never worried about if I sounded “too annoying” or if people thought I was homeschooled because I talked too much or if I sounded weird.
But now, I worry. I worry about my laughter: Is it too loud? Too high-pitched? Accompanied too frequently by an unbecoming snort? How many teeth am I showing? Do I look like a maniac, or a beautiful girl? I fret over the timbre of my voice: is my voice hoarse because I almost barely speak anymore? Is it too loud for the room? Are people staring at me? Is my manner of speech palatable?
And to abate my concerns, I curate every facet of my identity, inside and out. Every three days, I wash my hair and burn it until it is pin-straight because someone once told me my curls made my face look too round. I suck in my stomach because a friend once offhandedly mentioned that maybe I tie my apron around my back because my waist isn’t small enough for the tie to wrap all the way around my front. I wear earrings because I’m afraid that my face doesn’t look feminine enough if I don’t accessorize. I cover my mouth when I laugh because I’ve seen pictures of me mid-laugh and I despise the way pure joy colors my eyes and mouth.
This hyperawareness of my every imperfection plagues me incessantly, and I’m not quite sure why. Logically, no one pays enough attention to another human being to pick apart all of their millions of flaws — people definitely have better things to do.
And in an objective sense, I’ve “fixed” quite a few things already! My voice isn’t annoying to me anymore and I’m never the loudest or most talkative person in the room. I make sure to only speak when I’ve thought through every permutation of the conversation in my head, so that my response is always exactly what’s expected, so that I never make a mistake. When I do “mess up” or fall short of my own impossible standards, I know how to rectify it.
I’m not looking for someone else’s approval from all these little actions, because I know that I don’t need the world’s approval. It is my own approval that I haven't quite cracked yet. I have yet to learn how to feel comfortable in my own skin, and I consider this to be my fatal flaw — I have managed to sand myself down into something human-like, but not truly human.
But it seems as though I’m not alone in feeling ashamed of my heart on my sleeve. In fact, this entire rambling reflection stemmed from a conversation with my roommate when she talked about how cool it must be to be “nonchalant.”
This sense of belonging in something that is, at its core, an isolating experience, is enough of a contradiction to help me identify the fallacy in the logic behind this hyperawareness. What is it about humanity that makes us so scared to show emotion? When did love become embarrassing? Or is humanity defined by this mental tug of war, between wanting to be understood and wanting to disappear?
I am not a believer in waiting for the New Year to make a resolution. In fact, nearing the end of the year feels like the perfect time to take on new beginnings. So maybe, November 2025 will finally be the year for my own little quiet rebellion. Maybe this year, I will finally laugh too hard or mean what I say or tie my apron behind my back instead of forcing it to the front. And maybe, just maybe, one more slightly more “human” human could make it a little easier for the rest of the world to be human too.
Shreya Tiwari is a junior from Austin, Texas, studying BME. She is a Managing Editor for The News-Letter. Her column, "Invisible Strings," shares stories about all the people, places, and feelings to which she has “invisible strings,” intimate hidden connections that she hopes to reveal to readers with each piece.
