On being thorough

Sometimes I'm not thorough when I talk about myself and I think it prevents people from taking a chance on me. I've always been overly cautious when talking about myself.  Not in a shy way, more in a oh wow this is so awkward let's redirect this conversation kind of way.  And I end up with bits and pieces of me out there instead of a straight-up, beginning middle and end, on the rocks story of me, the best person in the world. (Wait what?)

I've always just toned it down, wrapped it up. Stopped talking, changing the subject with a joke.  Never wanting to be irrelevant, never wanting to bore, never wanting to be the "did you hear about how awesome my life is, here you don't have to ask, I'll just tell you" person.  But those are the people that I'm drawn to, those are the people whose confidence I admire, want to be more like.  So why doesn't it go both ways? 

And I mean come on are you trying to be humble or something.  Isn't the whole point of talking about yourself to show off? 

Be prouder. More confident. Straight up. I say to myself. And that's easy enough.  I can motivationally speak with the best of em.  When it comes down to it and it's time to share who I am, what my story is, it's like I am so highly protective of my feelings and experiences that at the threat of letting someone interpret, understand me, I run away.  It's not that I don't want to share, or don't think my life is awesome enough to share, but maybe it's that I am so connected to my story, the journey as a whole is so precious to me, that the idea of setting it free terrifies me.  Like I'm not done with it yet, why would I share my story with you now?  It's been confusing, irrational, messy, non-traditional.  Accomplished, at times, less than successful at others. If it doesn't make sense to me yet, so how can it make sense to you?

What I'm forgetting is that it doesn't have to. I just have to keep talking.