ve·he·ment

adjective

1. zealous; ardent; impassioned: a vehement defense; vehement enthusiasm.

2. characterized by rancor or anger; violent: vehement hostility.

3. strongly emotional; intense or passionate: vehement desire.

4. marked by great energy or exertion; strenuous: vehement clapping.

“I know you’re an emotional girl. It took a lot for you to not lose your faith in this world” Billy Joel

I am, and have always been, a passionate person. I am nearly never ambivalent; only infrequently apathetic. I have opinions, beliefs, desires, and I am not afraid to share them, speak my truth, and advocate for what I want. 

I realize this makes some people squirm and I’m totally comfortable with that.

 I do not need, or even particularly desire, that anyone should subscribe to my particular set of universal truths. I declare them so that we may both know our relative locus in space; to best determine if we will fall into orbit around one another or bounce off at acute angles and speed away accordingly.

It seems strange and even occasionally malicious to me that not everyone seems able to do the same. In these moments when I am wounded thereby, I must remember the fears that I have learned to draw close to me; to look upon them with a tender eye and coexist more peaceably.   To accept that for some people, the prospect of discovering and declaiming their deepest truth is the most frightening possibility imaginable. 

To be grateful I have never known how that feels firsthand.