No one else will know that part of me.
I'm still driving away and I'm sorry everyday.
I won't always love these selfish things.
I won't always live.

I have found that I have changed a lot over the past year. I call it change for lack of a better word, because I don't really think these things are changes. I feel as though I've just been hiding a part of myself behind a façade and faking it for people who really don't matter to me. It's sad to say that the people I'm talking about used to be my closest friends and my family, but I can't change them or their opinions of me.

I used to be so scared of what everyone would say. Gradually, I let myself out a little more, starting with my piercings. Just piercings, right? Or rather, instant uproar in my family. Yeah, the comments about them and about me hurt, but what was I to do? Get angry? Cause more drama by talking about how that really felt? No. I couldn't. So I sat there and laughed along with everyone else and let them say those things because what was I really going to do?

I found myself hiding every part of me that was real in exchange for some stupid fictitious version of me so they wouldn't talk anymore. The piercings stayed, but I refused to talk about what music I liked (even though that was all I wanted to talk about, the pure genius of some of the artists I listen to) or anything else of that sort. But they still talked. And finally I learned that no matter what I do, one of them is always going to be around to say "Hey, I don't like what you just did." Well, in the words of my hero, David Bowie, “I don’t care what anybody says, I like doing it and it’s what I shall continue to do.”

So, yes, I have changed a little. I stopped letting people walk all over me and tell me what I should do and what's right for me. These people don't live my life or know my feelings, so why should they be able to dictate my actions as a direct result of these things? They shouldn't, and I am no longer going to let anybody do that. I don't have room in my life for people without the guts to be themselves, and that includes myself.

Finally, I have brought to the forefront of my life every little thing about me that my real friends, the ones that sadly live so far away, love about me. As a result, I am more honest and I have found that honesty is more favourable than lying. I'm done lying to myself and hiding my real self away in the hopes that these people will change. They won't. Some people change and some people don't and these are the people that won't, so I have stopped caring. I disregard each and every one of them who tell me I can't and I won't and I don't because I can and I will and I do. I'm done with being used, done with being hurt and so completely over being told what's best for me by people who are the very definition of 'hypocrite'. I'm just done.

What if I didn't forget passion like you did?
What if I find my purpose first?
What if I fulfill my life's work?
What if you counting on my failure made me live?
Not scared, I know you thought I was shaking fast in
my own two shoes. But these soles
could fight the ocean waves, dirty laundry and World War II.
Finally, I see past my front hands,
not a coward's piss-stained pants.
Thank you for telling me I can't;
without you, I wouldn't be where I am. Read More