Coming home

Well.

That was all I had written since Monday afternoon and now it is Wednesday. It's very difficult to explain this. But I will try. I feel like I'm coming back from something. Coming home. That reminds me of Ellis's song Coming Home to You. She's my favorite musician. I've seen her in concert twice and am totally in love with her. She makes me all giggly and starstruck when she's in the same room.
Ellis (ignore the grain, I accidentally left the ISO at frickin 1600):

Back to the point. I've been horribly irritable for several weeks, which followed a depression of about a month. I was irritable until last week. I would yell so loudly at my students that I scared myself. Everything set me off. I wasn't even fit to be teaching to be honest, but you can't take a sick day for being angry. Part of it had to do with my aide being out. She has missed probably a total of almost 4 weeks of school and it's only December. But either way, I was just plain angry. I could hardly get myself to school. I decided I needed to go back on Risperdal, I hated my job, I cried a lot, and I just wanted it to all be over. I called Mom all the time in the mornings so she could talk me down and I could start breathing normally again. Not last weekend, but the one before, something flipped the switch. I started to feel better. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. And then Thanksgiving break happened, which was wonderful. It was such a good time for a break. And then Monday I started to think about the difference in my words and thoughts. These ruminations were a combination of having to make a hair decision (appointment is on Friday) and making Christmas lists and deciding what style of clothes to ask for (my grandparents and parents require a rather specific list).

On the way to visit my therapist, I realized I may not want to make my hair neon anymore. And as I talked to her, I realized I felt this urge to grow my hair a little and not be so edgy. I do enjoy my bright hair, but sometimes I am edgy on purpose. I just want to calm down. And I want to wear some less masculine clothes. I don't want ruffles or anything, but I feel the need to be pretty. And it has to be pretty, not just attractive. I want to feel like a girl again. I want to be recognized as a female, as feminine, as a woman.

And now it is Thursday night. This is taking me forever.

Part of me looks the way I do because it jut comes naturally. I haven't been overly feminine in years, and I dress for comfort. But a lot of what I say is a result of what I've experienced. Loren asked me where it started. It can all be summed up in this name: Grace Marie. When I was still a part of this Christian community, I was asked not to date for a year. I decided that was ridiculous but decided to try it. Around the same time I fell for The Creep. To make a long story short, I just wanted to have a relationship, I kept getting stricter and stricter rules, people were watching me and analyzing me, and I rebelled on purpose because I felt so boxed in. I've never quite gotten over that.

Aaaand it's Friday night.

And just like I said before that I put up the gay shield so that people can hurt that, but not the real me, I realized I'm tired of putting up shields. And more than that, I'm tired of trying things on. I don't want to try anything else on. I just want to be ME. That's why I feel like I'm coming home. I'm coming home to ME. I don't know who I am, really, but I am starting to find out, and I want to continue finding out. Whoever I am, I can't be myself when I'm trying on all these different personas. I am who I am. `And for whatever reason, who I am is a lot quieter and calmer and less rebellious than I seem to people.

My fear is that I will never stand out again, if I stop wearing and dyeing and professing like I do. I don't want to be looked over, viewed as just conforming, or seen as a normal average girl. If I give up all of these things I put on, what is left?