Thoughts

Just one more wordpress post I wanted to save:

29 July 2011

I constantly have so much in my head. Swirling around and usually making no sense, but still managing to stress me out. And the moment I think “hey, writing it all down might help,” I get to a computer and my mind either goes blank, or won’t focus on one thought for more than a few seconds. I end up typing a sentence and deleting it, over, and over, and over again. As you can imagine it is quite frustrating. Especially because in the end, I don’t feel any better.


Today, though, I’ve been thinking a lot about sexuality.
I have several friends who identify in the LGBT community and there is a pride parade going on today on campus. Though I called myself “straight” until I was about 18 years old, I am really happy with my decision to stop labeling myself. It wasn’t exactly that I came to any realization that I wasn’t straight, I just realized over time that in my case, it didn’t need a label. Yes, I find myself attracted to men and women, but no, I don’t need to label it bisexual. Honestly, its partially due to the fact that a lot of people think those who identify as bisexual are either sluts or looking for attention, both of which I am not.  As I said earlier, I don’t need a label.

In fact I despise labels. They only cause problems. Are you gay or straight? Pro-life or pro-choice? Republican or democrat? I feel like the constant need for us to ask these questions in order to get to know someone just hinder relationships from building and causing problems all around. Haven’t we said for years that nothing is black and white? How about this instead, we screw labels and just discuss our beliefs the way they are? If two people don’t agree, it can be because they talked it over and don’t have the same beliefs, and not because, before they even met them, they figured out they had a bad label. If that makes any sense. *sigh*

Unfortunately labels make things easier. As I realized right after I finished that sentence.
Moving along…

I think the identity crisis I experienced shortly after moving out of my parent’s house and that is still going on to this day, is really helping me become the person I want to be. I grew up in a home where my opinions, my beliefs, and my schedule were given to me and I wasn’t allowed to question them. You can imagine how exhilarating and horrifying it was to move 450 miles away from home and realize that I was indeed allowed to make my own decisions. You can also imagine how many bad decisions I made at first; all of that power and I didn’t know what to do with it or how to control it.

Lately I’ve been really hard on myself. Well, I’m always really hard on myself. But writing this post helped me a little. I’ve come to realize that I’m still in the process of creating myself. For 18 years I didn’t do that, I was the person my parents told me to be. (Though I did rebel, I still lacked personality and opinion.) And its not going to take a few short years to figure out who I am and what I need to change in order to become comfortable in my own skin. I have to have patience and allow myself to explore every corner of the world, every opportunity that comes, and every option I can take.