Earlier this week, one of my friends (the friends-as-family type) sent me a playlist he’d been putting together of songs he thought I might like. I was a really nice experience, to have this sent to me, since he was absolutely correct on all counts, so much so that I’m still listening to the whole playlist over a week later. It was funny to immediately see that two of the songs on the playlist were songs I already loved and listened to regularly, but the rest were all new to me and all absolutely perfect songs. Well, perfect for me. It made me feel incredibly “seen” in a way that feels increasingly rare these days, especially as I’m often living in a conflicting manner when it comes to the various major portions of my life. At work, I do my best to not be seen and known in this way because I don’t trust my coworkers (which has gone from a general trepidation about being vulnerable with my coworkers and grown into an entirely justified mistrust), which is at odds with the way I live my life online or with the people I trust who I try to be as genuinely myself with as possible. Throw in a couple other places where the way I live as myself is different–the discord for my Final Fantasy 14 Free Company where I try to be myself but lightly and with little revelation of personal details for example, or my local friend group where I was forced to withdraw into myself in order to cope with last year’s pain and sleeplessness–and you can probably start to imagine how much internal conflict I’m dealing with most of the time. I have only one small space where I can be genuinely myself and it is in text messages I exchange with my closest friends, which feels incredibly stifling and makes me feel like I’m being ignored by the whole world.