Never Grow Up

Now Playing: Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift (take pictures in your mind of your childhood room, memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home, remember the footsteps, remember the words said and all your little brother's favourite songs...I just realized everything I have is someday gonna be gone...)

I write about myself a lot on this blog, I know. A lot about my past.

I was born a writer, and I've spent a lot of time having words but nowhere to put them and nobody to say them to. That's what it felt like, growing up. First I didn't have the words, and then once I did no voice to say them with. It was endlessly frustrating.

It's very cathartic for me, talking about my past. My childhood wasn't a walk in the park. I've tried to take my own life before. I've sunk into depression and suffered through a lot of bullying. But there were beautiful, magical, euphoric moments, too. I remember everything.

That's the thing, really - I want to remember everything. I like the idea of my blog being a time capsule. I can picture myself one day, in the future, staying up with a baby in my arms flipping through my old posts when I was sixteen and trying to get over my first love.

Growing up, I felt like nobody could understand me. I lived in my own world a lot, with my own rules and my own logic and I didn't understand my own fantasies half the time, much less explain the warped products of my imagination to others. I wanted so badly for someone to just get me, for someone to be unprejudiced enough for me to open up to. I never found that person.

I realized eventually that that person had to be me. They say that the only person who's with you from the moment you're born to the moment you take your last breath is you, and it's so true. There are some things, some knowledge, some advice that I can only give myself, years too late. In other words, there were just some things that I had to battle out alone, and make my own mistakes and learn my own lessons. As much as I wish that I received these letters, I'm a better person without them.

I'm always under so much pressure to change, to give in, to buckle to social norms. Not just from bullies - some of my friends think I'd be saving myself a lot of pain if I just went with the flow. I always tell people to never change; grow. I was an asshole a few years ago, and perhaps I will look back and realize I was an asshole at sixteen. But I've always been myself. There's nothing wrong with who I am - I'm a tiny shoot trying to become a tree, and I'm not going to waste time pretending I'm a stone. There's nothing wrong with who I am and what I want to be. I didn't always have the strength or the wisdom to believe that, but now I do and nothing's going to change my mind. I don't pretend to be the most popular person in the world, but I don't want to be. My true friends are the ones who look me in the eye and tell me that I'm beautiful the way I am. I shouldn't have to change to find love, to find friends, to find happiness. I'm convinced that's a one way ticket in the wrong direction. My so-called 'friends' who tell me that I'm asking for it, every time I stand up and speak now, they don't know what they're talking about. It's hard, being yourself, being fearless, and at times it gets very lonely and sad and painful. But pretending, lying...that's infinitely worse. I would know. Going along with the game would be admitting that I think there's something wrong with me, and I refuse to believe that. I've got lots of room to grow, but nobody has to change who they are.