"We all have a favorite place...my favorite place,...is the bathroom. It's the only place I've found that will let me be me." (Leoneda Inge-Barry, Body Outlaws) As I reflect of the massive amounts of information I have been reading over the past week, I asked myself a lot of questions and explored a lot of emotions about self-love, self-acceptance, who I am, what I represent, and where do I fall among the issues that I have been presented with (recently). The thought that I spend the most time "stressing" over is do people see me the way I want to be seen? The question in and of itself is frustrating because I shouldn't care how people perceive eve me right? For the past few years I have been living a life that most people think is way outside the norm, for a girl, and it has been both empowering and crippling. I am always trying to justify my way of thinking to others and lately I have begun to think that I am doing it more to justify it to me than to them. Which in turn has made me cling harder to "my place," my apartment. I live alone and it allows for some very interesting moments. I can be who every I want, act however I want, dress however I want, because I am at home and alone. The issue is, why is there a need for that security blanket, why can't I be as happy outside of my home as I am when I am at home, alone, naked and watching Sport Center on my couch, smiling at myself every time I pass a mirror. Why does that happy, confident, person change when I leave "my domain"? Don't get me wrong I'm still happy and confident but its different, very different. Outside those walls my happiness and confidence comes from a different place. It comes from a place of defensiveness, a wantingness to prove that I am me and proud of it. And I wonder all the time, is it just me? I love "my place," I love how I feel in "my place," I love how I look in "my place," but it is not the same when I leave and sometimes it makes me a very angry person. I use to think that I would get mean and rude because I didn't want to go to work or class or be around people who annoy me, but I have begun to think that maybe it's because I have to leave "my place." I have to put on clothes, be judged, be looked at, observed, talked about, conform, portray my beliefs. So is "my place" helpful or is it harmful, does it provide some false sense of self? Does the fact that I don't take Dat Gurl with me make me weaker or stronger? Does the fact that I don't let anyone see me cry, except her, a good thing or a bad thing? As I stated I love "my place" so regardless of the answers I am in no way ready to give it up, but how much happier/better would I be if I could take "my place" with me, or if "my place" was where ever I am because I hold something inside me?
So many questions, so much confusion, and so little energy to deal.
