BE YOU!

I'm at a time in my life when I can feel perfectly free to be ME.  Yes, everyone should feel free to be themselves their entire lives, but for some reason, as a teen or young adult, people will try to tell you how you should be.

My parents used to try to make me go outside to play.  They would actually lock me out of the house.  Well, guess what?  I'm stubborn and unless I wanted to do it, I wasn't doing it.  All they did was create a wall against the outdoors in me.  Once I moved out and was on my own, I discovered that I love to play games outside and ride bikes and camp and raft/canoe...all sorts of things.  But their insistence on it made me rebel.

My college roommate hated that the majority of my friends were male.  She thought it made me look like a whore.  Please.  Men and women can honestly be friends without sex entering into it.  I've had many male friends and chances are I was trying to help them fix their relationships and talk them out of being stupid, not trying to sleep with them.  Ewwwww! 


I was criticized for 'job hopping' by someone who had the same job for over 25 years and would retire from that same job.  I really hope that she loved what she was doing and had been happy that entire time.  Me, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.  I mean, I knew what I was good at, but didn't know how I could implement it in a job.  I'm good at being in charge, organising and getting people involved.  It took a long time, but finally someone else saw my talents and here I am!  I love my job and wouldn't trade it for anything - I've worked at my current place of employment for almost 10 years now - that's amazing for me - I never worked anywhere more than a couple years before.

People often say to me 'When are you going to grow up and listen to other kinds of music?'  What?!  I listen to all kinds of music, I just prefer punk.  I'm sure I don't LOOK like I listen to punk, but let me tell you a secret kiddies...you can't tell what people are like by looking at them.  I have a goth/punk soul and it shines.  I look the way I do so that I can work where I love to work...but that doesn't mean I have to be boring or listen to what others listen to.  I adore the Fratellis and Ramones and Violent Femmes.  If possible, I would wear all black and dye my hair funky colors and cut it all weird.  But I can't.  That doesn't change who I am.