compie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm almost 20 fucking years old. I don't know if I've ever felt cool in baltimore. In DC, maybe. But never in Baltimore. I don't know why. This place has seemed stagnant to me my whole life. I know objectively, it's not. That life here and people here carry on like any other city. But for some reason, I hear the locals whispering about me. That I'm a bad influence on their daughter, or that I'm just sad, because I'll never amount to anything respectable. But why the fuck would the locals whisper about me...no one here knows my name. So that's an exxageration in both directions. But still. Living in DC for this past year has made me feel more at home then I ever felt in Baltimore, and I have no idea why. I suppose it's just not my city? One day I'm sure theres a lot I'll miss about this place. Maybe.. I found some old pictures today of me from 7 years ago. Now I know where all of my complexes come from. I was awkward--my hair was huge, I had braces, acne was coming in, and I dressed like a boy that thought he was five sizes bigger then what he really was. I had all of these old navy shirts that I thought were the shit. But I looked stupid. I looked really stupid. But it was when I was..what..? 13? and now I'm..shit. Almost 20. I think I started this journal about 7 years ago. 7 years is a long time. From 13 to 20 it is at least. I think I've evolved in seven years. I suppose most people do. I was talking to Randhall about this today, and we agreed that some things will always stay the same. But maybe not, I dunno. I've changed so much in this year alone. The Greenpeace thing I did over the summer really gave me more self-confidence and efficacy. Which is what I was looking for. Even though it may sound melodramatic, dealing with Aaron last year really made me stronger. I don't know why, because it's not like I haven't been rejected before. Something about that whole thing though really shook me to the core. I started to see a lot of things about me that I didn't like. And I started to try to change them. There wouldn't be so many stories and self help books and poems about finding and loving yourself if it was easy. That's something I probably also need to understand. That a lot of people have trouble with this, deep down. You just can't wear it on your sleeve everywhere you go. You have to try to change it. You have to practice loving yourself. You have to conciously think about yourself and who you are and that you're an amazing person sometimes. It doesn't mean it's not true, because it is. You just have to start beleiving it. of course, by 'you', I obviously mean myself. and maybe you too, I don't know. Maybe it's college that does it to you. Maybe it's just becoming this age. This period in which for some reason, there is a forum for which everyone starts bearing their souls a lot easier. Maybe not completely, but we've all gotten past the "lets imitate our favorite pop star so we don't have to think about our own insecurities" phase in life. Most of us, at least. I used to hate being not white. When I was little and I had a white friend, my mom would always comment on how pretty they were, provided they wern't overweight or anything else deemed socially unacceptable. they always had "pretty blonde hair" or "pretty blue eyes." It made me feel like shit. When I met another Indian girl in one of my classes, she taught me to say "school" in the correct 'indian' way, which was "schooluh" (in an accent, of course.) When I started calling it this, my mother flipped out. I suppose when your child is learning incorrect things it isn't cool. But this was the only way I could assert my identity at that age. I was trying..really hard...to be proud of my heritage. It wasn't working out for me so well though. Growing up, these insecurities built on each other. I was told by a few boys in middle school that I had liked (at different times), that essentially they would never like me because I wasn't white. All the black kids in middle school hated me as well, they just called me "little girl." My size was always an issue too. When I got older, my mom would pray to "heal my body" and make me grow. But now I realize a lot of things..Who I am is what makes me beautiful. 1:37 a.m. - 2007-01-14 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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