An Identity

‘I don’t want the world to see me,

Cause I don’t think that they’d understand.

When everything’s meant to be broken,

I just want you to know who I am.’

-Goo Goo Dolls (Iris)

            Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?
     
           I’ve scrounged every crevice and crack in this home, looking for pictures, old toys, worn out covers-anything that could virtually tell me ‘who I am.’  And    yet, these memories, these mementos, they’ve all left me empty-handed, wondering and weary. 

           The world is a mirror. 

           It holds truth but also lies.

           It holds what other people think about you.

           What society thinks about you.

But what is an identity without a little bit of controversy?

An identity can only be truly justified when there are people who disagree with it.

At the end of the day it is you who knows you best.

Not anyone else.

           

           Where do I search for myself, but in the mirror that reflects back my image so perfectly? 

The entity staring back at me is beautiful.  And yet, my being is not nearly as flawless.

  I have scars.

  I have blemishes.

             I look and yet, I cannot see.

            I touch and yet, I cannot feel.

           This glass separation between my reflection and I says it all.

           There is a separation for a reason.

           I am NOT the empty shell that is staring back at me with those tired, worn out eyes.

           I am NOT a reflection in a sheet of glass.

In our conversations we spend most of our time reassuring each other that our costumes of identity are put on straight.

            What is an identity without a couple of crooked lines? 

            If everyone’s looks and attitudes were the same- poised, pretty and perfect, life would be the epitome of boredom. 

There would be too much black and white.

It is up to us to fill this world with its color, isn’t it?

Glass shards shower around my being as I break the mirror of life with a pound of my fist.  That flawless entity, with no scars on a body of skin like silk no longer stands before me.

That is not me.

Not anymore.

Not today or tomorrow.

What it was, was a lie.

At this moment, I stand for the truth and nothing but.

At this moment, I try to explain myself, regardless of whether anyone will understand.

‘When everything feels like the movies,

You bleed just to know you’re alive.’

Reality isn’t always buckets of sunshine and rainbows.

If it was, we’d question it in every way possible.

Sometimes we just can’t imagine a perfect life.

But then again, maybe that’s what makes it so perfect in the first place.

There is nothing in this home that can tell me who I am. 

To find and seek I must look on the inside.

The tears that leak from my eyes are the truth.

I am not a person that only sees sunny days and dazzling nights.

I am not perfect.

But then again, is anyone?

‘I am.’

Two of the most powerful words in the English language.

What comes after them is what shapes your reality, after all.

Today, I am not that pretty girl, with the glossy hair that hangs in curls framing her dainty visage.

No.

Today, I am the girl with the uneven strands that dangle in front of her eyes, chopped off one too many times with a pair of kitchen scissors.

Today, I am the artist, the musician, the writer, the believer, the photographer, the cook and the science geek that I am meant to be.

Today, I am me.

Just plain, old, simple me.