Je Suis Bavarde

writing an essay about one tiny phrase I learned last week

Hello, ladies and their creations- Men, I said what I said.😏

If you’re here, you’re definitely avoiding something- a task, a text, or accountability. That’s fine. We support selective avoidance here.🫂

Sit down. Relax your shoulders. Pretend you’re thriving while we emotionally process whatever this is before it processes us!🌀

A friend recently taught me this line: je suis bavarde- I am chatty.

At first, I laughed because it felt too small to describe the full spectacle of my communication style.😂

Chatty sounds sweet. Pleasant. Interested in the weather and other harmless things.

I, however, am the kind of person who starts talking about childhood wounds and intrusive thoughts somewhere between “hello” and “how are you?”

In other words, I don’t just chat. I overshare. Sometimes catastrophically.😭

The French, though, have a different texture. Bavarde has movement. It feels like a character trait rather than a diagnosis. It’s not about being too much, or too loud, or too revealing- it just names the fact that words want to escape me.

I’ve always been this way. As a child, I would ask adults one question, and they would answer eight. I assumed silence meant disinterest. That if I stopped talking, I would disappear.

Speech was my way of insisting on existing.🫶🏻

And then I grew up and learned that most people ration information like it’s wartime butter. They share in teaspoons. They edit. They curate.

Meanwhile, I’m out here serving a ten-course tasting menu of my inner world to anyone who sits across from me for long enough.

Not to shock. Not to impress. Just because I don’t know how to serve less.😂

Final Thoughts (Before You Forget This Exists) 📝

For a long time, I felt guilty about it. Oversharing felt like a lack of discipline, or a malfunction in whatever mechanism makes people mysterious. I envied the quiet ones with their perfectly timed disclosures. They seemed safer. Cool, even.

But lately I’m realizing that oversharing isn’t always a breach- sometimes it’s an offering. A way of saying, I’m willing to go first. I’m willing to be seen.

If you’re tired of surfaces, I’ve got depths. It’s messy, yes. But it’s also honest.

Maybe je suis bavarde isn’t an apology- maybe it’s a declaration.

A small, French permission slip to exist without shrinking.

To be the kind of person who trusts conversation more than silence, and connection more than composure.🫶🏻

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Okay, stop. That’s enough growth for one sitting.

Go drink water. Crack your back like a glow stick.🌀

Proud of you. Mildly alarmed, but proud.🫡

~ Sanaa, reporting live from the brink.