I'm still a mess. I still don't really know who I am, and I'm working hard every hour to figure it out. It changes daily, the feeling that I don't belong blending into and eventually being overtaken by the feeling that I'm exactly where I want to be, then back again over days or maybe weeks. It's better, because I used to live solely in that dysphoria, masking it with mental images of a not-quite-person, a mold that I pressed myself into just so I would see something when I looked in the mirror.

It's hard to acknowledge, especially living in the moment, because some of those images are true, and they get comfortable cohabiting with the false reality. You begin to make life choices based on that loose construct, and then you can't back away because it means you have to tear down what you've been building and before you can get to that point you have to admit that you were wrong - and sometimes that is the hardest fucking thing to do.

That mindset kept me living in almost constant danger for almost 3 years, a danger I refused to acknowledge, some of which I encouraged and participated in. You know those movie scenes where people are gathered under a bridge warming their hands over burning garbage in an oil barrel? That's winter in the less savory neighborhoods of the Midwestern U.S. where the sanest of the homeless gather in numbers so there's some sense of community - or failing that, just to avoid being driven off by gangs or police. Strength in numbers. I lived that when I had the option of a warm bed and 3 squares a day. All I had to do was swallow my pride, but I was too far gone to look myself in the eye so I chose life in a crappy van that soaked up most of my irregular paychecks just to keep it and everything I owned from becoming derelict and hauled off to a junk yard.

I cut my hair and dyed it pink and got my first and only tattoo, but chickened out of piercings after getting a second set of holes in my ears and one in my nose, but I otherwise embraced the punk crowd as my clique for a sense of camaraderie and an occasional sofa to crash on. I thought I was thriving because I was tough, but in reality I was just surviving because I got lucky enough to find people who cared about me, at least enough to make sure I didn't end up dead in a gutter. if I'm being honest, it probably had less to do with me as a person than the fact that I'm small - easily adoptable as a mascot, like some lost and lonely puppy.

Against all probability I was never raped, and I ended up in only a few physical fights. Hospitalized once, but it wasn't that serious.

Living that lie became part of my truth and it continues inside me today. I'll never stop being a little bit street, a little punk, though I've found comfort in big gunky sweaters and hot chocolate in the wintertime, celebrating Christmas with the family that took me in when I woke up, and hanging with friends I only barely deserve.

I know I've said some of this earlier in this journal, but it's a big part of the tangled mess in my heart and brain, alongside other events I've hinted at, and still more I won't elaborate on here. If you don't like it, don't read it. I'm just feeling introspective as the season settles in, birthday looming, Christmas not far behind, and a whole new year ahead. I don't know what time will bring or what I'll do with it, but for now I'm glad for everything I've gone through, and equally glad I made it out in more or less one piece.

I'm deeply grateful for all I have and the people in my life, and I hope that when all is said and done, when this world is left behind, I'll be able to say that I've done my best to honor those blessings.