It might sound strange for someone with a blog and streams but I find it very hard to write or speak my thoughts on a lot of subjects. It just feels like I don't have the words a lot of the time and I don't want to be misunderstood. I don't know where this fear came from, like I would much rather have someone disagree with me than them argue a point I am not even trying to make. It might be going through the school system as a child with middling grades and trying to fit their big ideas into the small shapes of the work sheets or tests he had. I'm not sure, but what I know is that there are a surprising amount of times in my life where it was too difficult to explain a misunderstanding about who I am to someone. In those occasions I would tend to shrug and just kinda go with it. Like, they weren't problematic but they kinda just weren't me.
I look like I enjoy metal, I prefer a good folk song or a cleverly written rap.
I look like I'm Scottish or a viking, I'm Metis and proud of it.
I have a loud voice and I tend to be expressive, I'm actually an introvert that gets worn out by social performance.
There are a bunch out there and I don't want to say that I am the only person that goes through this. I think this sort of experience is very common and with COVID keeping people isolated has meant that they don't have these reminders of the social tags that are being put on them. They are not being told "you look like X", "you sound like Y", "you are so Z". Without those constant reminders they kinda don't stick. It seems like a lot of people were forced to figure out who they are. Been seeing so many people on social media realize that their gender or sexuality just didn't fit with them. I have to admit that there was a long span of time where I was wondering if I was ace or even non-binary, still thinking on that to be honest. There was also a time where thinking about all of these tags that were put on me made me angry. Angry at the people that were unwilling to interact with me honesty which choose instead to create a new identity for myself and mad at myself for allowing that to happen.
This whole thing was talking with a friend who said I should talk about this exact topic and I am not 100% sure this is what she expected. Expectation is kinda the biggest thing about this. Like, I am naturally considering how are people going to take this and how it is going to change their perspective of me. This is my blog but still this social instinct is guiding what I am going to say. It forces me to come to terms on how does one engage with their thoughts in a truthful manner. I don't know if not being able to engage with my thoughts is a work of cowardice or just a natural extension of mental illness. Whatever it is makes me feel like a god damn coward when every time I want to engage with my feelings on something it creates an infinite rabbit hole that I tumble down.
God, this was supposed to be about identity and the COVID isolation. Let's right the course and re-focus on that. So, I have basically dropped a lot of people out of my life during this time, I have come to understand that this is pretty common for a lot of people. I know for myself a lot of those people were the ones that were creating this identity for myself. Considering I wasn't around them for a long time I had to look at this interaction and realize that I shouldn't have to fight someone to be who I am. Once that clicked in my mind I realized that these people just weren't listening and I was. They knew what they wanted to me to be and anything that shifted that identity was promptly ignored. Just writing this has made a solid handful of names rush through my mind. It is sort of baffling how many of this sort of relationships I have encountered.
On a lighter note, I have also kept a good collection of people around me. I cannot voice how much I appreciate the interactions that we have. When I mentioned about thinking if I was ace or nonbinary earlier it was because of them. It wasn't them going "You are X" it was them asking "Do you think you are X". This might seem so minor but it was letting me fill in the blank. I wasn't having something forced on me, no presumption trying to be made solid. They were excited about the prospect of me finding this out about myself too, even just exploring the idea. It just makes my time with them easy. I can trust them that something I say isn't going to be used against me and if there is a problem we can talk it out. They know me because they have let me be me. I am still figuring out who me is but they are right with me, I am there with them.