Four Sides of Calise – Meet the Girls

First, let me premise this by saying that I in no way shape or form take credit for this as an original concept.  “Personality Sides” were introduced to me by a really good friend on a later aLBoP forum, as a self-exploration exercise which, no surprise to anyone, I really love doing, as I’m pretty obsessed with myself and why the crap I do what I do.  That’s embarrassing to admit, straight off, but if you don’t like me or exploring my internal processes, then you should probably leave the website with my name at the top of the page, because this site is going to be exactly what it says on the tin.  (Nothing like starting a blog and immediately telling people to leave; off to a great start, Calisey.)

When my friend shared the exercise, she credited Thomas Sanders and linked his first video on the topic.  Honestly, I’ve watched a lot more of his Vine compilations and not much of his longer YouTube stuff, but he seems like a sweet, earnest fellow, and I appreciate him coming up with this idea, because it’s helped me immensely since I tried it, sometime in early 2018 I think.  I could look when exactly, but I’m lazy right now.

But the short version and purpose of “Personality Sides,” is breaking yourself down into sides of who you are, kinda akin to Inside Out (which I’ve actually only seen like half of), as sorta the little committee that runs your brain lol, in order to explore more about who you are and what’s going on inside you.  Everyone’s sides will be different.  I do think it’s interesting though, that as we explored our different sides on that forum, most people seemed to find themselves with four sides.  Now I think there are cognitive and dichotomous patterns behind that, but that’s not really what I want to go into here.

So the initial creation of characters for what happens in my head was fun and interesting, but it quickly became a lot more than a fun exercise for me.  I struggle with a lot of anxiety and guilt, day-to-day.  And while using my own tools to understand my cognition and that the things that my mind prioritizes are good and worthwhile, certainly helps, sometimes I just get so fed up with myself and think “why can’t I just be happy??  Why can’t I just trust myself?  Why do I obsess over and over about pleasing people and whether or not I’m letting them down?  Why can’t I just get over pain I feel about the past, or let go of caring about people who have hurt me?  Why can’t I just suck it up and deal???”

But suck-it-up-and-deal always suppresses some aspect of who we are.  And through this exploration of the different sides of me, I’ve come to discover that the times I’ve had the biggest breakdowns, blowouts, and burnouts, have all been a result of my attempts to lock some aspect of myself away, assured it was unwanted, only to have that very aspect explode under the pressure of being held down.  And when a side of me comes out under duress, it comes out ugly; mean, sad, guilty, and volatile.

But as I’ve tried to appreciate each side of Calise for who she is individually, I’ve discovered charming aspects of each of them, sides of myself that, if I’m being honest, I treasure and would never want to give up, as much as I may feel they’re unwanted.

If you try this exercise for your own sides, I strongly recommend that you let it take time, let it be a process of discovering who you are, rather than pegging yourself as who you’d like to be.  It’s hard to like ourselves where we are now, especially for those of us who are hard on ourselves, which is probably most people reading.  But I think I can promise from experience, as you let your mind be made up of a cast of charming, but often frustrating characters, all trying to move in their own separate directions, you can more objectively come to see why they, and in turn you, deserve love, patience, and appreciation, for who they each are.

Okay, now for my four girls, who you’re sure to see a lot of around here!  It’s totally up to the individual to name their own internal personas, if desired, and I loved the idea of giving all four plays off my name/nicknames, and I couldn’t imagine them being called anything else now.

Where the four names come from:

Ecee:  Before I could pronounce “Calise”  or “Calisey” as a toddler, I could say “Ecee,” so my mom (iirc) started calling me “Ecee Baby,” being the baby of my family, and it just sorta stuck, forevers.

Little Calise – circa 1991
In which I explain the importance of orange juice and call my brother “potty.”  Not sponsored by Fruit Loops.

Squeezy:

When I was a kid, we’d pray together as a family before bed, and then afterward we’d have a family hug and my mom would say something about “pass the squeeze” (to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember the logistics of this hug, I just remember kneeling on a ‘90s hunter green rug).  But sometime between 3-5 years old probably, I started saying “I’m the squeeze!” and then they’d like squish me in the middle of the hug or something?  My memory of this is sketchy, lol, but anyway, Mom again adopted it and calls me “Squeeze” and “Squeezy” to this day.

Angelle:

So Calise is in fact my middle name, because we’re Southern and weird like that 😉, and my first name is Angel (pronounced Angelle), after my paternal grandma.  She was super wonderful and I’ve always been happy to be named for her.  But as if it wasn’t enough that Calise gets mispronounced, forgotten, and misspelled at the time, since it’s so unusual, no one knows that “Angel” is supposed to be pronounced “Angelle” not, y’know “angel,” or that it isn’t the name I go by.  So, at doctors offices, DMVs, school, and now my office job–anywhere they automatically use your first name–I’ve been called “Angel,” pronounced the heavenly messenger way, my entire life.  After a point you just roll with it, and if you say “hey Angel” I’ll probably respond, even though after almost 30 years it still doesn’t feel like my name pronounced that way.

Mom always bought me angel themed items, and in middle school/early high school I kind of embraced it by buying things with “Angel” plastered across them.  It was the early ‘00s and it was particularly fashionable to have labels like “Princess” or “Diva” or “Angel” across brightly colored items and I spent too much babysitting money on junk from Claire’s and Limited Too, like a mini locker, an ill-fitting neon chartreuse t-shirt, and a shelf, all with “Angel” across them.  At one point I think I even had sweatpants with angel declared across my butt.  But I always viewed it ironically.  I had those items because of my name, but angelic was the last thing I ever felt.  It either felt like a reminder to try and be something I was pretty sure I could never obtain, or just a flat out “ha ha, as if” in my mind.

Probably would have really helped if someone had been able to explain my Callous side to me back then…

 

Callous:

I really like this backstory for some reason.  Again in middle school/early high school, I was an early adopter of our library’s online catalog.  There was so much less to be found informationally, online.  No Pinterest, which I would have just died for back then.  But I would still research the crap out of any and everything I was interested in, via nonfiction books at my local library.

When I was a freshman in high school, for the semester I went to the school by our house, the library was in walking distance from the school, and it was such a relief to leave all the pettiness of high school at the end of the day, and walk by myself to the library, picking leaves off plants along the way and determining which of my characters had that color green for eyes.  And then I’d get books on everything from pottery and industrial design, to upcycling (before they called it that), to medieval socioeconomic patterns and castle layouts… to Tom Cruise movies.

But it was unlikely that they’d just have what I wanted on the shelves.  You couldn’t just walk in and hope Top Gun or a book on Josiah Wedgwood were just there waiting for you.  So I’d order online from across Fulton County (which included the giant downtown Atlanta library, score!!), and put out as many holds as the system would let me, then await my free books and movies as eagerly as Christmas morning.

When they came in, the library would call and leave a message on our answering machine, which you’d check over our cordless handset… which I think was purple for some odd reason.  The library message system was automated with a really terrible AI voice recording.  It would say (phonetically): “A-Cree, An-gel Callous, your books are ready for pick up…” in an attempt to say Angel Calise Acree.  Always thought it was way too hilarious that the library thought me callous.

 

Four Sides of Calise – Profiles

Ecee

Ecee is a glittery, girly, bubbly, princess who can’t help but love everyone… which often gets her into trouble.

The most giddy, enthusiastic of the bunch, she lives to make other people feel happy, warm and wanted, but she struggles with the compulsive need to please everyone and tends to get uptight and bossy to the other three when she begins obsessing over tending to others’ perceived needs.  Her heart is in the right place, but her anxiety and determination to put herself last often gets Calise into trouble and breakdowns as she relentlessly bites off more than Calise can chew.

When Ecee relaxes, then the other girls are happy to let her be Calise’s public face: sweet, perky, and devoted to all.  When Ecee becomes a frenzied please-everyone-monster, then sometimes the other three have to tie her up in a back room until she can calm down, for everyone’s sake.

But lately the girls have come to realize what Ecee brings to the group, and that it was being taken for granted, by no one more than Ecee herself.

Ecee has often been heard to sob, “why can’t I just stop caring?!” exhausted from her heart breaking over other people’s decisions.  But as Calise has had to learn, the girls need Ecee’s love, optimism and effervescent little spark to make anything in life matter.  When the world feels like someone turned down the saturation, and Calise struggles to care about characters, music, clothes, or even food, it’s clear Ecee needs to be snuggled and soothed that it’s all okay, so she can start to see the diamonds in the sky again.

• Favorite shows and movies: Friends, Sofia the First, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and Stranger Things (for the characters and touching moments)
• Favorite colors: Pink, lavender and yellow (actually all colors, and anything sparkly!)
• Favorite article of clothing: Calise’s pink tulle maxi skirt; it makes her feel like a ballerina.
• Favorite song: “Brand New” – Ben Rector
• Song that sums up her inner feelings: “I’m not Ready to be a Princess” – Sofia the First
• Will never get tired of talking about:  How much each individual matters… (also crossdressing)
• Number one fear: Disappointing everyone.
• Secretly loves: Her figure

 

Callous

Callous the succubus takes mischievous glee at being Calise’s dark side.  The embodiment of Calise’s Megamind Complex, Callous enjoys basking in her superfluity of naughtiness, being bathed in the darkness of her own edginess, and arguing while grumpy.  Callous tends to get most out of hand and grumpy when she’s being suppressed and forced to the background, usually by Ecee’s social fears.

While she has been known to stage hostile takeovers of Calise, Callous can ultimately be subdued with being reminded that she is loved, and not in fact evil (even though she wears fishnets and thigh high boots).  Chocolate helps too.  When she isn’t lashing out, Callous’s insights can actually be quite helpful and incisive, pointing out observations that Ecee would sometimes prefer not to hear.

While she definitely has her flaws, the other girls love Callous for her rawness, her snark, and her unwillingness to take *beep* from anyone.

• Favorite shows and movies:  Daredevil, Marble Hornets, YouTube humor videos, and Stranger Things (for the suspense and villains)
• Favorite colors:  Purple and black
• Favorite articles of clothing:  Calise’s black velvet floral combat boots and black lace skirt, they make her feel like a grungy gothic queen.
• Favorite song:  “Smells Like Teen Spirit”- Nirvana
• Song that sums up her inner feelings:  “Please Don’t Leave Me” – Pink
• Will never get tired of talking about:  Gender, “that’s what she said” jokes, things that irritate her
• Number one fear:  That she’s irredeemably bad.
• Secretly loves:  Being held when she’s grumpy

 

Squeezy

Squeezy is a geek.  Whether it’s fangirling, clothing, food, music, or tech, Squeezy will be there to way overthink, over research and over enthuse about the possibilities and details involved.  No matter the topic, if Squeezy sees an opportunity to pursue options, she will dive in and research and experiment tirelessly until all aspects get explored, no stone unturned and no variable unisolated.  Squeezy loves maximizing efficiency and awesomeness despite limitations.

She’s also a big fan of being a fan and loves geeking out about her favorite characters, movie and tv references, decades, steampunk and how all her favorite things are connected to each other.

She can get a little nitpicky and overly zoomed-in when she’s nervous, and she often needs Angelle to give her a dose of perspective so she’ll stop logistic-crunching and let reality speak for itself.  But when she sticks to figuring out how best to implement the plans all four girls have come up with together, the other three love how Squeezy can always come up with a solution to any problem, no matter how random it may be.

• Favorite shows and movies: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars (especially the animated shows and not the prequels), everything Disney, and Stranger Things (for the 80s and humor)
• Favorite colors: Aqua and lime green
• Favorite articles of clothing: Calise’s floral leggings and neon pink suspenders, anything she feels will make people double-take and burn their retinas with color and pop.
• Favorite song: “Feel it Still” – Portugal The Man
• Song that sums up her inner feelings: “Renegades” – X Ambassadors
• Will never get tired of talking about: Cloud-based software options, capsule wardrobes, cooking within dietary restrictions, her fandoms
• Number one fear: Missing information
• Secretly loves: The Twilight Saga

 

Angelle

Angelle the Greek goddess is Calise’s long-view; the perspective and wisdom of the bunch who raises the others’ aims to higher heights, instilling passion in archetype, principles, and the hope for being able to make a difference in the world.  She loves to explore universal patterns and the potential of the human spirit, driven to grow, no matter the challenges that may arise.

As Calise’s inner Paradoxitype, Angelle tends to struggle with Hercules Syndrome, fearing that if people see her side of Calisey for who she really is, they’ll think it’s weird and unlikable, and grow uncomfortable.  And Angelle can be a little awkwardly passionate sometimes.  When the girls need someone to bring the fire, Angelle is there with a flaming sword of rhetoric and a motherly stern tone of voice.  But Calise has had to learn from experience how dangerous it can be when Angelle isn’t allowed to own the magnitude and worthwhileness of Calise’s true endeavors.

Even at time of writing, Ecee is yelling, “No, don’t say that!” from the background, while Angelle puts on her determination face and says it anyway.

• Favorite shows and movies: Lord of the Rings (extended versions, of course), The West Wing, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Stranger Things (for the archetypes and applicable themes)
• Favorite colors: Powder blue and emerald green
• Favorite articles of clothing: Calise’s heeled oxfords and extensive cardigan collection, anything that makes her feel like a mix between a chic librarian and a respectable vintage pin-up model.
• Favorite song: “Slow and Steady” – Of Monsters and Men
• Song that sums up her inner feelings: “Whatever It Takes” – Imagine Dragons
• Will never get tired of talking about: Story, archetypes, how anyone can be a hero
• Number one fear: Not succeeding in overall plans
• Secretly loves: Callous’s jokes

 

Well that’s the most embarrassing stuff I’ve put on the internet in… at least a couple months, lol.  But I hope it gives you a sense of me in my varied hues.

Ecee: 😬 I hope they like us!
Callous: They probably won’t like you.

Ecee: What?  Really?!
Angelle: No honey, she’s trolling you.

Ecee: Why would you do that??  You know how scared I am about this!
Callous: [smirks] Yeah, but it’s funny seeing you run around in a panic.

Squeezy: [examining the shot] Hmm, you know how Ecee’s sleeves originally looked like her chest until Justin pointed it out and we fixed it?
Ecee: [blushing] That was an accident!!

Squeezy: Well now I think Callous might be having the opposite problem.
Angelle: It’s okay, I really don’t see it as a problem if people think she has large… shoulders.

Ecee: Why are you even wearing that anyway??  It’s embarrassing.
Callous: I’m a succubus! What do you want me to wear, a parka?  Besides, you secretly liked when Justin thought–
Angelle: Girls, girls!

Angelle:  Let’s focus instead on what we’re embarking on here.  From this day forward, we have “A Little Bit of Calise.”  I don’t think we should underestimate what it can become.  We’re just getting started in so many areas of our life!

Squeezy: So we should sign off for now.
Angelle: But lots more of us four to come!
Ecee: So be excited!!
Callous: Or dread it and feel stupider having read this at all.

Ecee: Callous!!  You’re why we can’t have nice things!  Ellie make her stop!!

Squeezy:  Okay, signing off! See you all next time!

Squeezy: I feel like we need a catch phrase… I’ll work on a catchphrase.

Much love (from all four of us… except for Callous who refuses to admit how much you all mean to her.  Okay, even Callous, but mention this again and die a slow, painful death),

<3 Calise