what you see is what is.

Nov 13, 2007 - 22:37 PM PST

i used to think that being popular would be the answer to all my problems.
i used to think that if i was only a few inches shorter, if i didn't have dimples and freckles, that if i had blond straight hair, was an A student in math, that people would like me...
That some how the only way for me to be happy would be joining the crowed.
I use to hate my height. I used to hate my freckles, my dimples, my wild curly red hair, my outgoing personally, my love for the "unacademic" works of life.
but some how hating everything about me didn't make me happy, and knowing that i could never join the popular table at lunch hurtled me into a decade of depression.
upon graduating the four year hell i called high school, I moved to a big city and changed every thing but my name. i straightened my hair, changed my style, and started to hang out with the "pretty girls" in the dorm. Suddenly i had the confidants to lie to myself, to look in the mirror and tell my self that this new, pretty, transformation was truly me.
But it wasn't. Every morning that i woke up and spent wrestling my curly locks into the straight hair that rivaled that of my piers, i felt empty, cold and fake. No matter how much money i spent on clothing, on make up, on hair dye, i still felt like there was something missing.
Anxiety attacks plagued my morning classes. The normal day overwhelmed me to the point of exhaustion, until i picked up one week and moved back to my College home town. The same town which had learned me to hate my very existents.
When i moved back i relearned to hate my self. both the one i had know before college, and the one college had made me. Every morning i woke up and hated myself.
However 2 years later, i laugh at my naive self. I cant put my finger on what or when exactly changed the way i look at myself, but i know that i can face the day knowing that being me is where, what and who i want to be.
It has taken me that 2 years since sophomore year of college, and 21 years of my life to discover who i am. and that person? is, simply me.