I mentioned yesterday that I'd lost my snicker. While I haven't completely lost my snark it tends to disappear for days at a time and when it returns I just don't feel right about asking where it's been.
If you knew me between the ages of, say, 13 and 30 you would have been very acquainted with my snark and snicker. In fact I'd go so far as to say that much of my personality--certainly through high school and college--was defined by snark and snicker. Irony. Sarcasm. My best friends at the time. Really, really good mechanisms for projecting a sense of calm lassie faire superiority which was a convenient shield for a rampant sense of discomfort, fear, and incompetence. Lazy faire is more like it.
But then something happened as a result of forces, choices, and experiences that I won't bore you with at the moment. I discovered my heart. By which I mean: I stopped trying to use precious moments to convey how smart, sharp, and biting I could be. I figured out that snarking and snickering, while entertaining, was about building walls instead of paths. Paths. You can stroll down those. Walls. You've got to climb them.
Me, I'd prefer to stroll, with my arm around fine people, down a path.
Thanks to dakini_grl for the inspiration for this post.