The Kraemenator

What do you guys think?  Please comment if you think it could be expanded uppon/cut down/improved…

Since Pre-School, I have been told to be myself and that people will like me for who I am. Since high-school I have filtered my personality, stripping away some of the qualities that made me who I was in order to try and become someone who could be more easily accepted into the high-school community. I had become only a portion of myself in an effort to try and become accepted by my peers. That year, I became different people, not drastically different people, for my values had not changed, but different none-the-less. My identity was determined not by the qualities which made be unique, but by the people who surrounded me! In my pursuit of acceptance, I had filtered out the qualities that made me belong.

My grade 9 year was not a happy one. It was not because I had masked myself to the point where I had lost all sense of identity, or that I was an outcast, but rather, I felt like I didn’t truly belong. Do not confuse acceptance with belonging, I felt accepted by my friends and my peers, but I felt as if they were accepting only the parts of me that shone through my filter, only the parts of me that got over the wall I had built around myself. This wall kept the parts of me that may have caused some people to not accept me because I wouldn’t be deemed “normal”, but it also kept the best parts of me, and the parts that made me whole from the rest of the world. To be accepted is one thing, but to truly belong somewhere, to accept and to be accepted whole-heartedly is another. I accepted the people who made up my peer network and in return they accepted me, but I didn’t, couldn’t belong, for not only were parts of me hidden, but I believe that some parts of my peers were hidden as well, and I could not accept those parts which they did not show me.

Towards the end of the year, I became frustrated. It seemed as though my only chance of ever belonging would be to take down the wall that surrounded me, the one that kept my friends from knowing my personality in its purest form. But how do you take down a wall that you have so carefully constructed one that has been tailored in every way to hide the parts of you that are vulnerable, the parts of you that differentiate you from being just another teenager? I did not know the answer to this question, I still don’t. Walls are meant to be permanent, forever changing the landscape of which they are built upon, forever changing the way I acted around others. And while no wall is insurmountable to a determined person, it is as good as invincible against those who have no desire to break down the wall, as mine was. I felt like my wall was the thing that kept me from being ridiculed by my peers for showing those parts of me of which could potentially be deemed “weird” or “un-cool”. I felt like my wall was all that separated me from despair, though day by day its oppressing shadow slowly wore me down, day by day I became less happy with the way my life was turning out to be.

And then the school year ended, and brought with it a new beginning. At the start of the school year, I was different. I smiled a little more, I became a little closer with my peers, and in general, I enjoyed life a little more. My wall had not disappeared, it was still present and still imposing, but it was a little smaller than before and little more sunshine came over its edges. I let the world see more of me, and I think the world let me see more of itself, and I was happier for it. I had let myself become more vulnerable, not a lot more, but a little. I was true to me and in the end I was better off for it. Do not be afraid to show yourself to the world, chances are, they’ll like you for it. This I believe.