What does that mean? Yesterday we had this journaling workshop at work. An author who writes memoirs was here and she was doing a little workshop for would-be writers or journalers (not to be confused with journalists). I signed up and went. It was pretty cool. A couple of times she gave us prompts and had us write. I volunteered to read one of my writings to the group and people said that they loved it. The workshop leader said I should try to get it published somewhere. Yeah, right. As I wrote yesterday, I went around thinking I could write poetry after a vague compliment my uncle gave me when I was 10 or so. I'm a little more reasonable about how I receive such comments now.

Anyway I just saw a colleague who had been at the workshop and she said, "the piece you wrote was great." I said, "Ok. Thanks. But why? I don't get what was great about it. I'm not fishing for compliments here; I'm just trying to understand why people liked it." She said, "Because you're just so you!" I decided to take a chance because this particular colleague is going back to school to be a therapist so I figured she'd be open to an honest question so I said, "I hear that from people but I don't know what it means. I mean if they don't like me saying 'you're just so you' could be a huge insult, right? What does it mean?" She said that, at least in writing, many people try to temper what they write so they can sound a certain way but that the piece I wrote really expressed who I am. And that my personality is pretty much the same way -- I just come across as 100% me.

An odd concept. What else would I come across as? I still don't really get it. My friend JAR has said a few times that I am "100% Anne. La original. La auténtica." I thought he was just being silly. But I think that is also what this co-worker was saying. She added, "Don't worry about it. Your friends love it and who cares about those who don't."

Later I will transfer what I wrote in my journaling workshop to this blog. No time to do that right now.