Who Am I? Who-ooh? Who-ooh?

I never wanted to be myself when I was growing up. When we lived in Albany, Georgia, when I was in 1st grade, I wanted to be Dawn, the fearless girl who lived across the street and had older brothers. When we lived in Atlanta, I wanted to be Gloria, the dark-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned girl from Belize, or Chaleise, the adventurous black girl who lived down the block, or the girl who lived across the street and looked just like Trixie Belden. I wanted to be Arthur's sister--I can't even remember her name now--Robin? I wanted to be Neal's sister because they had a cool house and a trampoline in the back yard. I wanted to be ANYBODY except who I was.

When I got a little older, I wanted to be Lisa, who was the only girl in a family of boys and whose mother let her paint her bedroom purple. I wanted to be another Lisa, who never hesitated to let you know if she was pissed at you by kicking you in the shins with her painfully hard-toed Mary Janes. I wanted to be Leslie who looked a lot like Amber Benson, although of course I didn't know about Amber Benson until a few years ago.

When I read books, I wanted to be Trixie Belden. I never wanted to be Honey or Diana, beautiful as they were. No, I wanted to be fearless to a fault Trixie Belden. I wanted to be George, Nancy Drew's tomboyish friend. I wanted to be Donna Parker, Lucinda, Hildegarde Dolson, Hildegarde Graham, Rose in Bloom, Adopted Jane, Anne of Green Gables (but I decided I wanted to be Emily of New Moon once I discovered her), Polly from an Old-Fashioned Girl. I wanted to be brave, fearless, strong, true, trustworthy, reliable, honest, brave, good, womanly, brave.

When I got into high school, I wanted to be Ann, the Korean girl who was adopted as an infant. I wanted to be Karen, my friend from Sea Cadets who was on the drill team. I wanted to be Karen, my next-door neighbor who was blonde and cute. The guy I was dating, the guy Karen wouldn't date, wanted me to be Karen too. Can you imagine how destructive a relationship that was?

I wanted to be the third twin to Sheri and Jeri. I wanted to be the third best friend with Jenny and someone whose name I can't even remember anymore. I wanted to be popular. Of course I wasn't. I was a misfit even among misfits.

I spent my whole damn life trying to find somewhere to fit in, a group that I could call home, a place where I would be accepted. I tried to be as bohemian as I could be, which wasn't very. I tried to be a wild rocker chick. Didn't work. I tried to be a Molly Mormon, and probably did that longer than anything else, but finally gave that up when I realized what a fake-out it was, and that I was sick and tired of pretending. That doesn't mean that I have rejected my spiritual beliefs, because I haven't. It just means that I will no longer mistake culture for doctrine.

Why all this introspection? Last night I was thinking about the songs that I want to put on my mix CD for the Crazy Mixed-Up Group. My week is coming up soon. I have extremely eclectic tastes in music. It's hard figuring out what I want to put on my mix. What songs do I want to use to represent myself? For that matter, which self do I want to represent? Which songs represent my true self? I've picked out a tentative mix, and I'll listen to it today to see if it works for me.

I don't know if I'll ever find a place that I fit in, at least, not the whole me. There are places where parts of me fit in. I guess that's a good start, right? There is almost nowhere that I feel free to be fully honest, and that's a little sad. I can be fully honest with my sister, I think I can with Clover, I can with Trista (which is a little weird because we haven't met, but I totally get that vibe from her). And my husband is an angel and loves me madly and deeply and dearly. But I feel like I'm so strange and so bizarre that my weirdness would be more than a little offputting to most people if I allowed it to show. So usually I let only a little of the weirdness out and keep the rest of it locked up and hidden away most of the time.

That means I have a rich, gloriously colorful fantasy world inside my head. It's too bad almost no one else can see it.

Oh, and if you noticed the themes of bravery in the people I wanted to be, I decided it takes a helluva lot of bravery to survive. So I'm brave, damnit!