If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character... Would you slow down? Or speed up?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

(Insert Title Here)

In high school I had so many different titles that I gave myself. I was a “maggot”, a “juggalo”, there were times that i called myself “straightedge”, or even “indie”. At some points during those amazing years I considered myself to be a “prep”… then I went to the other end of the spectrum and was “Goth” for a while. I covered everything afore mentioned and all of the in between. But to me none of them were just a “phase”. They all defined me… the defined me in that moment and who I thought I was going to be for the rest of my life. There were so many times that I found a new social clique to be a part of and I thought to myself “This is it, this is where I want to be in life. This feels good” and then like any other teenager I moved on to the next best thing to lighten my days.

I was so sure so many different times that I knew who I was… That I had found self by dressing a way or acting a way. But no matter what I did I couldn't fight the empty feeling that kept creeping up inside of me. No matter what I did, something just didn't feel right. It is so interesting to look back and think of all those different phases and how I would change to fit the “scene” of the time. It is so funny to think that during high school I really had no clue who I was, but in junior high I can remember telling a boy “It is better to be hated for who you are then loved for who you are not” Why is it that as time went on my sense of self depleted? Why is it that as time continued I lost who I truly was, why couldn’t I hold on to my own shining light?

When I left high school, I became a social deviant in a way. I had dropped out of the one place that had shaped me to who I was becoming. Only when I left high school though did I truly start to understand who I was going to be. I hadn’t become that person right away, because as we all know, change takes time. It took time for me to throw away all the preconceived notions that society had set forth in my head. I was starting to realize that I didn't always have to be the life of the party, but at the same time I didn't have to be some secluded, stuck in the corner type of person. I could be an in-between and no one would fault me for that. I had a lot of help coming to this realization, and words cannot express how thankful I am to those around me for that.

Right when I was starting to understand who I was going to be my world shifted. That person that I could have been was whisked away from me, and I had a new destiny laid out before me. I was going to be a Mom and a Wife. I no longer had the leisure of being myself. I had expectations that even though they may have never been verbally requested, they were socially demanded. I don't put the blame for this on anyone else. It is something that I am more than a part in, but is something that I have had a hard time accepting.

At work this afternoon I was asked what motivates me, and I of course said my family, my coach wrote down “Motherhood” and I had to stop him. I told him my back story and how I still have a hard time when I am referred to as “mom”, don't get me wrong, I love my role but hearing sometimes brings me to reality. I then told him to scratch out motherhood and write “momhood”. Mother makes it sound like someone who knows what they are doing, who was more than prepared to take that step and had a complete comprehension of what they were getting into. I am not that person. I am a confused and scared little girl inside that is in a whirlwind of a life right now.

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