Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Put Back Together Again

Have you ever just wondered where you went? In that bigger sense? I have. I've woken up and realized that I don't really know who I have become. I've looked in the mirror countless time only to see a stranger wearing my face like a mask.
When I was a teenage I didn't care what people thought. I hated my peers and most people because they were dumb, literally and they didn't understand the bigger picture in life. I saw most people trapped in trivial pursuits, bound to their mindless beliefs. But somewhere along the way, desiring to be "normal" I gave in to the masses and decided to try and fit in. The truth is that I don't. I am not generally petty and not lowbrow at all. I am pretentious, don't get me wrong,  just not petty. And I don't seem to have a normal niche in the world. I don't really get along with everyone. I am nice and kind, but I'm very unorthodox and not always appropriate. Not even a decade ago I wore those characteristics with pride. But somewhere along the way that all changed.
I didn't go on identity seeking missions until more recently. I took chances, tried on different roles, tried substances, switched crowds, tried on every mask and every hat... Just to find out that none of them fit. I wasn't supposed to wear a hat and masks were sweaty. So one day I just stopped. I let myself out of my cage and realized how much I loved painting with water colors, that I still liked new age stuff, and opened up a notebook to journal and journal, and that I missed reading non-fiction books about society, psychology, philosophy and physics. I remembered that I didn't mind dressing up like an eccentric hippie pagan and that I absolutely hated people that didn't think for themselves. I also remembered that I am not so shy either. I remembered how much I enjoyed talking to strangers and listening to their life stories.
I never realized how much bravery it took until I had to break away from mainstream. I never realized that it meant seeing many of my friendships as a facade and that I had to let a lot of them go. Upon re-embracing my "wild" side, my true identity that it meant revisiting my pain and realizing all my fantasies weren't true. When I was 17, I refused to live in a "fake," pretend world. I unapologeticly sot out truth and would purposely swallow that painful pill just to make sure that I or no one could imprison me with deceit.
Somewhere along the way, weighed down by loneliness and a lot of pain, depraved ambitions that perhaps I had to learn to acclimate to society because I couldn't live life angry at the world for not understanding me, so decided to try and be like "them."  That apparently only broke me down more, leading me to where I am now.
I can't say that I regret the learning experiences I've gone through. And oh dear Lord, I can say I've done a lot of things that most people would have never thought of, and truthfully i would never give it back. However due to the "Law of Equivalent Exchange," I did have to endure A Lot of heartache. I have thought often that it would break me and maybe it has a little. But now that its over, I am not broken... All my pieces seem to fit quite nicely together. I was and could be put back together again.