Being present to compliments, seeing yourself

Last night, as I was typing away on my computer way past my bedtime, my friend remarked to me, “You’re so good, you write every night. If I did that, I’d be done with all my work as soon as I got home from my trip.”

Instead of thanking her for her compliment or even acknowledging what she said (you’re good, you write each night), I deflected it:

“Oh no,” I explained. “I’m not good. I’m writing on my blog because I want people to read it and write comments on it. I’m writing to get praise and attention,” I laughed. “But I’ve also found that when I feel the need to write, I should write, because that feeling doesn’t always come up and it’s hard to find later.”

I’m pretty sure I know why I did this, why I deflected her comment instead of accepting it, I think I said what I said because it was the truth. See, I had been noticing earlier that day how much I had been grasping at the possibility that people would love my travel blogposts, how eager I was to check to see if there were any comments on my blog, how instead of wandering around in the city I was in, I just wanted to get back to my hotel room to write. And this desire to write had nothing to do with writing and everything to do with the reaction I was hoping to get from it.

Also, when she said that I was good for writing every night, I knew that wasn’t true either. Though I had written each night since we had been together, that was more out of coincidence than from any discipline on my part. I just happened to want to write both those nights, it hadn’t come from a commitment to write each night or from a place of being good.

But the next morning, as we were walking through the bus station, I thought about the fact that I hadn’t been present to her when she gave me that compliment. She had offered something to me and I had pushed it away. I also thought about the fact that others often see in us the things that we don’t see in ourselves. I began to wonder if my deflection of her compliment might be my way of not seeing myself or rejecting another person’s accurate view of me.

So I reconsidered what she said. I thought about the possibility that I might be committed to writing (not each night, because I knew that wasn’t true). That made me remember that that night I actually had written in order to capture something that had happened that day because I thought it was important. And then I remembered that I had written something else because I knew it would help me to process some things, would help me to see myself better. I can't say that those were necessarily commitment to writing or being good, but they weren't me grasping for praise or attention either.

In all this, I still don’t really know if her compliment to me was true or not. But I think she saw something about me and my writing. And I guess what I want to do is to be aware of myself around this, to genuinely consider people’s comments to me, be aware of when I deflect them, and consider whether or not that deflection keeps me from seeing a self of me that I wouldn’t normally consider.