A lot of what I know about myself comes from my relationships with other people. We can start with my mother, just for the sake of starting somewhere. My parents divorced before I can remember, when I was maybe three at the most. I lived with my mom from then until I graduated high school, and she was a single mom until I was in sixth or seventh grade. There were a few guys that she was with for a while, but none that lasted, at least until my step dad. Some people, including my dad, think that not having a real father figure and living in a house with my mom and older sisters for a large portion my life was a large cause of me being gay. I don't believe that. It happens, but I believe that boys raised with a lot of female influence tend to get more feminine mannerisms, but don't actually cause them to like guys. But we'll go back to the sexuality issue later. My youngest sister is seven years older than me, and when she was about sixteen or seventeen, she went to live with her dad in Michigan. The other two were also already out of the house. My mom worked very late, and so most of my home life was spent alone. My mom had been in two car accidents by this time (I was maybe ten I suppose) and had a lot of back problems, so many nights when she'd get home around eight o' clock, she would be really sore and just want to go to bed. I basically raised myself from a very young age. I made sure that I ate. I made sure that I got my school work done. I made sure that I got up when I was supposed to and did what I was supposed to. I made the majority of decisions for me that are generally the parents' job, unless I couldn't make them myself. My mom would always tell people how independent I was, but she didn't really realize the extent of it. Nor did she see it as a bad thing. To this day I can't say whether it was a "bad thing" or not. But I guess around the time I started high school, I realized that I hated having to depend on other people. When I had to have someone give me a ride. When I had to wait on someone to get me something. I had, and have, been so independent for all my life, that depending on someone else feels strange and is very discomforting. Why should I have to wait on them to do it? Why can't I just do it myself? In the end, with raising myself, I grew up too fast. For at least the last two years of high school, I had a level of maturity that didn't fit my physical body or current stage in life. And, sometimes, I think I may still be. I still am very independent, and prefer not to depend on others. But at the same time, I'm tired of it. But when I think of my "ideal partner" in a relationship, I don't want someone that will take care of me; and at the same time I don't want someone that I have to take care of. I want someone whom I can help take care of, and who can help take care of me.
            I love my dad. Very, very much. But things are never going to be the same again. When I "came out" [probably my least favorite term in the English language] to my family in Indiana, it had felt like it went over really well. My dad wasn't angry or disappointed or want to disown me or anything. At the time, I was almost positive it would be one of those three things. My family in Indiana is very religious, and with all the "fire and brimstone" for the gays, I wasn't exactly expecting a warm welcoming. However, after some time had passed, I realized that it hadn't gone over exactly as it had seemed. My dad still accepted and loved me as his son, just not the "sin within me." He and my step mom began feeding me crap like I thought I was gay and even bought Christian literature on "coming out of" homosexuality. I wasn't angry, or even upset; just disappointed, and so, so tired. It really just broke my heart. I mean, now, everything is fine, as long as it doesn't get brought up. And we're at this point that there is this awkward, awful funk between us and neither of us knows what to do or what to say to the other. I don't ever bring it up, or try to argue with them about it. Not because I don't want to deal with it, it just hurts too much. They will never understand, and I just have to deal with that.
            I learned a lot about change my senior year in high school. After going through one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life, and never got closure with the person it dealt with, without any reason, my best friend began drifting away from me. It began when I got back from my dad's for the summer after my junior year. After going to rehab, as well as picking up a taste for alcohol. After the summer from hell in which I was bombarded with accusations that my home in Texas was causing my "suicidal tendencies" followed very quickly by my unrelenting, origin-unknown want to come out to my parents. When I came back to Texas that year, I was a different person. As I continued to deal with Chris [the aforementioned worst experience ever], not in the best of ways, Elizabeth, my best friend, continued to grow away from me. I was already in an awful state, because I was cut deep, and when I don't get closure, I am completely fucked [sorry for language, but I really can't put it any other way]. And when I couldn't go to my best friend anymore, and she was inexplicably growing away, and wouldn't talk to me or tell me why, my state worsened. I began drinking unhealthily. Here, the difference between unhealthy and regular drinking being that I did it because I was depressed. When she finally did talk to me about it, it was December. She said she didn't like the person I had become. I was no longer the happy person I used to be, she even went as far as saying I had become "emo." She said that she thought it was a phase, and so she distanced herself because it was upsetting her. There were two things she said that I will never forget: "I miss you. I miss who you used to be. I miss what we used to be." and "maybe we're both just holding on to something that isn't there anymore." The latter makes my stomach turn every time I even think it. The worst part, though, is that, in the end, she was right. I decided that I would change. I didn't stop drinking, but I did stop my drinking problem. I stopped wallowing in my self pity and trying to get people to feel sorry for me. And things did sort of get better. But it was never the same. Neither of us knows why, but I have an idea that I had never really thought of until just now. She abandoned me, when I was going through one of the hardest times of my life. And I have forgiven her, and I understand why it happened, and I don't hold any grudges or anything. But I think, subconsciously, I can't get past that. But from this experience, I learned that change is not often something you can control, and often it is something you don't even notice. The only thing that we all know is ourselves. It's the only thing we have spent every second of our entire lives with; so, in a sense, it is our only constant. But it changes as much as anything else. But because it is our "constant," we don't look at it like something that can change; so when it does, it can go unnoticed for a long time unless someone else brings it to our eyes.
            Just in writing this I've already learned something else about myself. I am an extremely independent person. And, at the same time, I don't like people, in a general sense. I think that they are, for the most part, stupid, and most of them make the world a worse place. I believe that that is because I have been let down many times, and in the most awful ways. My parents, Chris, Elizabeth, Andrew, and so many others. There are a very small number of people whom I have gained a certain level of closeness with that have not let me down in a way that has greatly affected and/or changed and/or hurt me. And when someone else lets me down, there is nothing, absolutely nothing I can do about it, except give credit where credit is due. When I let myself down, I can fix it, or lessen the damage, or at least do more than just try and make myself feel better. When I am in control, the mistakes are mine, and mine alone, and the consequences are mine. But when I depend on others, I am no longer in control.
            Now I have made references to Andrew both here and in previous journals, but have not given much back information. There is a story there, but one in which I choose to leave out certain elements as to not invade his privacy. But I have, once again, been let down. I thought we had become very close from the very beginning of our first semester here at University of the Ozarks. In the beginning, when everyone else thought he was an asshole, hot, but an asshole, I was his friend. I took the time to really get to know him. But over time I learned that our views on "close friends" are completely different. I was looking for someone like Elizabeth was to me, and Jordann is to me now. And he… Well I don't know what he was and/or is looking for. But I do know that he is very much so still in high school, and I often tire of his lack of maturity. And due to some recent events, along with some not so recent ones, I have felt betrayed, lied to, manipulated, and generally fucked with. For a while I really wanted to confront him on it, and just really rip him a new one. But A. I don't like confrontation, never have, and B. I realized that it really wouldn't do any good. After everything, he doesn't realize that what has happened, and what he's done has had any effect on me. And that just goes to show that he either doesn't care enough to notice, or that he just doesn't care enough to care. So I'm just going to settle back into our "friendship." I'm not going to repeat the Elizabeth scenario and put a great deal of effort in trying to save something that isn't worth saving. The key difference in the two is that, with Elizabeth, we lost what was there before, and, with this, there was nothing there in the first place.
            I feel like this is something that I should bring up, just because sexuality is "a big part of identity." However, I don't really think it is. My sexuality doesn't define who I am, it just defines who [and really not even who, it's more like what] I like. I have known that I was gay since, really as long as I can remember. I didn't exactly know what it was, but when I think back to then, I know that that's what it was now. And this is a conversation I have had with several people, but I'm not really gay, I just like guys. I don't know virtually any of the "gay icons," or other things and people that gay are "supposed to know." Generally, I don't really have a lot of the typical mannerisms. I'm very "straight acting" if we want to dip back into gay vocabulary that I'm oh so fond of. I'm not sure why I'm like that, but I think it may be that I'm a much more introverted than extroverted person; so my outwardly "gay" mannerisms are much more subtle. I also think that both of those due to my want to not be just another generalization. Oh he's gay, so he listens to Tori Amos and Cher, watches America's Next Top Model religiously, has Goldie Hahn movie posters up in his room [I don't even know if I spelled her name right] and wants to go to cosmetology school; and don't forget the limp wrist, subtle lisp and constant desire to have cocks in his ass.
            I've always considered myself an introvert, at least ever since I learned what an introvert was; but I never knew why, I just thought it was just because I just was; some are, some aren't. And I never really thought about it. But when you write a paper that you really have to think for, well, it kind of makes you do a lot of thinking. I think it partially derives from me being so independent. Because it's generally frowned upon to speak to yourself on a regular basis, I did all my thinking inside my head, instead of with others. It also relates to my dislike of confrontation, though I don't know if it's a cause or effect. I don't like confrontation, and am frankly very bad at it, because, when I really need to talk to someone, I can't put my thoughts together into words for more than a few sentences before I lose something. I constantly have a countless stream of thoughts going through my head, things that I want to say; and I pay specific attention to each one of them. So it's very easy to lose my train of thought when my words are miles behind my thoughts.
            Shortly after both you and Mrs. Taddie made the comment on my voice, I realized why I do that. She made it first, and at the time I wasn't really sure, but I had said that it was a habit formed from laziness, because I never really needed to speak out. And then right after rehearsal [or class. Whenever it was that you said it] I realized what it really was. I believe that it comes from a lack of self confidence. I don't know if I seem like it, but I really don't have a lot of confidence in myself. I have always been my worst critic. And if I'm not satisfied with my performance/work, nothing anyone can say can make me feel any better about it. For instance, I've had one performance in my whole life which I actually thought that I did really well. It was for UIL prose interpretation my junior year. I was practicing it, and there was only one person that saw it, my friend's mom, who was basically my coach. I somehow did the piece perfectly. It was incredibly strange, and never happened again. I've really never been satisfied with any other performance I've ever done. I think it may come from my constant, almost always over-analyzing of things. I think about it too much, so I get a lot more of those "if only I'd done that"s or "I could have done this"s.
            In class, when you were telling us how to read these papers, you used Danielle's obsession [if that's the term you used] with romance novels. I believe I have a similar need to find out the reason for my need to define myself and my life with song lyrics. It's usually with a band called "Bright Eyes." I can listen to it endlessly, and never get tired of it. A lot of people call it "emo" or sad music, but it isn't definitely. A lot of it is sad, but at the same time a lot of it isn't. It all depends on your personal interpretation and relation to it. I find all of his music [Conor Oberst, the lead singer] extremely easy to relate to. And I love the songs because it's really just good music set to poetry, whereas a lot of bands just put good words to music. And, relating back to my paragraph on introversion, A lot of times I can't really put words to how I'm feeling, or what I'm going through. But when I find the words in a song, they just feel right. Quite often, my moods don't have words, they have lyrics. "Well if the costume fits, keep wearing it; but no Halloween could quite account for this, I guess you're getting in to character. Or just be yourself, if that would help; I'll sink completely into someone else. You dreamt of mountains, but sometimes a hole is more comfortable." Other times, the instrumental part is what gets me the most. In the title track of the album "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning," the chord progression just makes me want to keep pushing on forward. It's hard, very hard, but I'm trying with all that I have and all that I am to get through this and be happy. Music is one of the things I love most on this earth. I have more passion for it than most everything. So why am I a theatre major? Why not a music major? Or even just a member in some struggling indie/emo/punk band? I'm not really sure. I have more experience in theatre. I have had more opportunities in my life for theatre. But also, having a passion for music itself, and having passion for creating music are entirely different things. It's taken me several years, but I may have put a definition to it. Music is who I am. Theatre is what I do. Both are what I love.
            This paper has taken a ridiculously long amount of time, mostly because of my constant struggle of painting my thoughts into words in a way that comes out appealing. In a way, it's been like one of my blogs, only much longer, and with better grammar and paragraph structure. I write things like this, or at least used to, all the time, but maybe not to this degree. The difference here being that my blogs simply allowed me to express what I was thinking or feeling or going through, whereas this took that too a whole new level, while allowing me to learn more about myself at the same time.