Feb. 9 - Eccedentesiast in Posso's Prompts

Eccedentesiast (adj, neologism:) Someone who hides their true feelings behind a phony, happy attitude or smile.

The amount of times I have heard that I am ‘hiding something in my eyes’ or ‘fake smiling’ never ceases to amaze me. It hasn’t ever been certain to me if I just have that readable of a face or if I just look that sad all the time. A recent ex would always look at me and ask what was wrong, and at first I just had thought it was a conversation starter to fill the silence but after having to go through radiation treatment and being sick and physically hurting all the time, I could tell that it was because I was not as good at hiding the discomfort as I thought.

All my life, my mom always said I had an infectious and great smile. Girls in high school loved commenting on my one dimple. “You should smile more. You have a great smile. You’re always frowning.” Comments like that haunt me at times when I just want to be scowling and seething and pissed off for no apparent reason other than feeling the comfort in misery. It comes down to simple terms for me; I like feeling miserable. The sense of satisfaction I get from just general dislike makes me happy. There has to be a complicated made up word for that that I have no desire in learning.

Smiling to me when I was younger meant hiding my emotional pain I was feeling: I hated getting made fun of for having boobies bigger than some girls going through puberty. Fat kid with a small penis and silver dollar sized areolas in high school? They’re the fodder for all the jokes. I didn’t have a hard life, so it shouldn’t be taken as complaining, I just wanted to look normal, feel normal and fit in; the status quo of a high school kid. Of course, you had to grin to show people you weren’t bothered. Then you could step your game up and start making jokes and hey, even picking on other people too! Duh, not necessarily what you would do as a 30 yr old now (sure, I’m still snarky and make fun of people, but not anything harmful and I listen when I’m asked to stop, all part of growing up) The emotional pain was aided by physical: broke my hip running track, dislocated my knee the senior year of high school, cancer, infections, more breaks. Physical pain has just become a side effect of living for me, and alcohol was a way to change up taking all the pills I was prescribed. Yeah yeah yeah I know, healthy.

Everyone’s come to expect the happy-go-lucky, joking, happy version of me but let me tell you; it’s hard when your life seems like an act. Sure, I’m allowed to feel pain, and hurt, but I feel the stress of everyone worrying about me if I let it show would be overwhelming. My close friends know I love my independence and my secrecy. Hiding behind a smile makes that easy. I haven’t been good at doing that this year, and I think that might be a good thing for now.