Bookbinder in My Brain

I love books.  Anyone who knows me even a minuscule bit knows this.
I also love metaphors.
So, there's this.

Last night, when I was talking with my BF and was gently teased for my inability to form a concise (and clear) question, I found myself attempting to get to the bottom of the strange phenomenon of verbal vomit (in the best sense) I seem to have whenever I am truly getting close to someone.  You see, I am not usually a talkative person.  Frequently, I have slowly gotten to know someone and had them turn incredulously to me after a period of "verbal vomit" and exclaim, "WOW!  I never would have known you were secretly talkative!"  It's a phenomenon that I struggle with because I usually come across as shy and un-talkative because I often refine things in my brain a lot before allowing the words to come out of my mouth.  But, when I've known someone for a while, and they've shown me I can trust them, I might decide to let them into the messy inner workings of my Brain Bookbinding Factory.

(Relevant Side Tangent)
  As a child, I once went to this book binding factory.  Before going into the factory we saw the finished products, all neatly lined up, cleaned up, and ready to read in their clearly packaged casings.  Inside the factory, things were a little bit...messy.  Between lung fulls of paper dust (which is unlike pixie dust and did not result in any flying on my part) we observed the employees cutting, gluing, tossing, and re-cutting books in the making.  It was noisy. Messy.  And I loved it.

My brain seems to work like that factory a lot.  I tend to have polished thoughts out front for those I don't know well.  I boil things down, reorder, cut, and scrap my thoughts until they are in the most easily presented and digestible form.

Those who get to know me well may feel like I'm getting lazy on them, just spurting out whatever comes to mind without fully thinking it all through and grinding it down to it's most palatable and understandable form. No, and yes.

No, I'm not getting lazy on you through the comfort of the closer relationship.
Yes, the words I spit out of my mouth are not as neatly packaged.
Why?
Because you've been given a special ticket to come into the messy inner workings of the Bookbinder In My Brain.  I TRUST YOU WITH MY MESSY AND UNREFINED THOUGHTS.  That's a pretty big step for me.  For some people, there is a regular field trip going on of people making their way through their Brain Bookbinder (which I often admire about those people).  For me...well I think less than 5 people have ever gotten that tour.

Does this show a lack of trust?  Possibly.

But it also means I want those who get tickets to a tour to understand how absolutely special they are to me - not that I have placed less value in the relationship and no longer feel the need to think questions through before asking them.

I realize that sometimes the messy thoughts can cause frustration.
They're not fully formed.
They can change.
They may even be more blunt or worded confusingly.

But it's my best effort at showing someone that I truly trust them.

Trust them enough to not judge those thoughts as the end results, to help me in forming those thoughts and refining them, to hear me out in my long-form with out prematurely judging me or attempting to choose what the end product will look like.  To me - one who usually likes to think things through...then think them through a few more hundred times before any words make it out of my mouth - letting you hear the thoughts in my head AS THEY FORM is one of the scariest things I will do on the journey to fully trusting you and letting you in.

I want you to grasp how much I value you when I let you in like that.

I could continue to boil things down and give you the core question in the smallest amount of words, but that would leave you continually on the outside of the factory with the majority of people I meet - and you're special to me...so, welcome to the Bookbinder In My Brain, and sorry about all the thought dust you will inhale along the way.

But know that you will be the first (and possibly the only one) to access each finished product.

~ R