The Consequences of Waking Up.

I'm having issues with identity.

As a child, my biggest concern was fitting in. In middle school, it was standing out. Now I'm stuck in this position where I don't know where I fit in between that.

Fairly recently, I changed the description on my tumblr to include that I am a 'borderline crazy person'. This bothers me. Sometimes I think I do things in some sick grab for attention without consciously recognizing it, and this is one of them.

I stopped yelling at myself a while ago. Sometimes I catch myself saying things that would suggest that I have a purely negative view of myself when truthfully I don't. Sometimes I look at myself like a mother looks at their child. I love myself because I'm mine and I raised me and sure, I've done stupid and ridiculous things when I was young but I can do nothing but laugh when I look back on it. I don't hold a lot against myself because I didn't know better.

I read this piece last week on someone explaining growing up. How every birthday you're asked "So do you feel older?" and you honestly feel the same. The thing is, age is a collection. Some days you feel like you're three and some days you feel like you're thirteen. And every year you gain, you have more experiences to compare to. Some days I feel like I'm fifteen. Some days I feel like I'm ten.

Fairly recently I've found myself feeling younger more often than I'm comfortable with. I can make that distinction. I'm not going around feeling sorry for myself, because I recognize what is 'wrong' and I'm actively trying to quell it. Younger emotions are bubbling to the surface, though, which sometimes makes it difficult as well. There's a reason children need guidance, after all. As a writer, all I can do save these feelings for inspiration. As the 'Master of My Soul', all I can do is get myself up every day and do what I have to do. As a teenage girl, all I can do is write on my blog. Those are identities, I suppose, but they're just facets. They describe pieces of me.

The only thing that fully describes me is Jessica, not the generic description. Not the bratty protagonist in that one book when you were eleven. Not your least favorite character in your favorite movie with the same name. It's hard to explain this to people who don't know me personally. That there isn't any one word to describe me. I hate sounding like I'm trying to be unique, because I'm not. I'm over that. But being unique and being different, just like every other human on the planet, is the consequentive norm.

I am quite certain that these 'grabs for attention' I mentioned earlier are in correspondence with both my quest for identitive certainty and misplaced maturity expected of me as a fifteen-year-old. But maybe they're just me being moody or inconsistent. I'm not the type to try to make philosophical statements when I still get upset that some weeks there isn't a new episode of Grey's Anatomy. Maybe this is all just a part of growing up. Maybe this is all just a consequenceof making it this far. Maybe I'm just so glad that I have the things and people around me that I forget to be grateful for who I am. Maybe that'll change.

Sorry that I'm kind of all over the place, everybody. I'm working on it.

Happy New Years.

There's No Such Thing As Lesbians - An American Folktale

My little brother is in the Seventh Grade, and he is one of my favorite people on the planet. He is such a thoughtful, sweet and overall caring kid and I just love him so much. But when my brother doesn't get what he wants, he becomes disrespectful and begs. Where does he get off, cursing at my father for taking away his xbox while simultaneously begging my mother to give it back. The thing is, while he was begging my mom, he was saying things along the lines of 'You don't love me or else you would get it back for me'.

That's a normal thing kids say, right? I don't think I've ever said 'you don't love me or else you would ______ for me'. It just sounds like it would really hurt, so why would I say it? I've recently realized that I'm a really sensitive person. Well, I've always known, obviously. But I mentally spent the majority of Middle School giving myself callouses in order to toughen up my emotional skin. Ugh, 'mentally'. I hate the negative connotations associated with that word. Like talking about mental health is inherently not healthy. But back to the matter at hand, I spent a long time thinking that if I buried the 'problem' deep enough, it would cease to exist. But I realized that I will ALWAYS be sensitive. And that kinda scared me. I mean, I'm not a COMPLETE wreck when it comes to how emotions affect me (although I have been known to put too much emotional significance into shitty pop tunes and have succumbed to tearing up to some dance tunes that in my head are as hard hitting as Angels by Sarah McLachlan ie. Ne-Yo, Karmin), but it makes explaining my feelings more difficult. I already have an aversion to talking about myself. When I was reading Julian's blog post and he said he didn't know what I would feel comfortable with him disclosing, I kind of hoped he would say those things pertaining to me. Yeah, so I'm gay. And don't get me wrong, I am for the most part comfortable in it. We dated twice, and it was the reason we broke up the second time. But talking about it just puts me off. Talking about me makes me uncomfortable. Because of my sensitivity to emotion, sometimes it can saturate my thoughts towards things to the point where they are hard to vocally express.

Lying and not knowing are two completely different things. But sometimes I feel that people think I'm lying about how I feel when in reality I don't know how to put it into words, and that fact that I am quick to brush off my own emotions doesn't help the situation. I feel like I have hurt quite a few of my friends because of this. They ask what's wrong, and I don't know what to say. I spend a significant portion of my day trying to excavate and decode these ancient scriptures of myself and in the end, all I get is... a bit more confusion. Sure, I know how I feel about a bunch of things, I've spent my entire life cultivating opinions! But the reflective proper noun of myself is still mysterious. And no matter how much time I throw into trying to understand myself fully, I will never have words to express everything. And that doesn't mean I'm going to stop. It just means I know I'm leading my way through the desert for forty years in search on an Eden that isn't there. And I guess knowing what I'm getting myself into makes it better?

My mom is actually currently upset with me because I can't explain how I feel about things. And I don't understand how she is angrier at me compared to my brother, when I'm being quiet and he's spouting expletives? I have been told that I was an expressive child. Now, I don't remember this, but I remember feeling uncomfortable in my own skin as a five-year-old. So I prefer being quiet, I prefer having the ability to put my thoughts out through this medium rather than vocally. I like being able to choose the order and the shape my thoughts take such that they sound at least mildly competent.

I remember, last year, Luke said something about Escape. And I've recently started to rely on it. I've begun throwing myself back into music with an intense need that I haven't experienced in years. I need to get out of my head, and music has always been my first choice. But it's more than that. Now, since I've realized how much time I spend stuck in my head, I'm trying to find a creative outlet. And being sensitive leads music to completely control my mood. So if I'm freaking out about something, putting on music of a different emotion can completely compose me. No matter how much I want to get out of my head, I'm only ever going to be me. But I'm taking some control back. Sure, even I find it kind of unorthodox and even semi-unhealthy. But I don't have some mechanical way to fix myself, and I'm not asking anyone to try to find a way because I'm starting to be happy again.
I am not a Robot.