identity

Last week the five year old asked me if I wanted to change before we left the house. After sweating through my dress, getting them home, fed, and washed I realized I was still wearing the sweatpants and t shirt I put on when we first landed at the house. Apparently my look didn't work for her. She suggested I put my dress back on and gave me some jewelry to sweeten the deal.

While I have no doubts the five year old got her fashion and forwardness from me, sixteen year old Diana would've been mortified that I had to hear those words at all.

I change for people. A lot.

Up until two years ago I didn't like sneakers. Up until a year and a half ago I didn't like shoes at all. Two years ago I stopped wearing a full face of makeup because I thought it would make someone enjoy my company more. Before last year I didn't like asparagus or Brüssel sprouts. This isn't a case of "people change". This has become a case of "people change me" and I'm finally realizing how sad that makes me.

I've spent a long time sacrificing little parts of me to appease people. To make them happy, to make them stay. Three people on this side of the country know I'm a force. Everyone else thinks I'm a laidback, happy-go-lucky people-pleaser.

When I was thirteen I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted. I was confident in my terrible fashion choices and awful taste in comedy. Then I spent one night at a bowling alley in Shoreline being chastised by a friend in the bathroom who berated me and told me I'd never know who I was. She spent the night asking blasphemous questions and belittled me when I challenged them. I'm sad to say after three hours I let her get to me and doubted myself for the next five years. At eighteen I had a handle on it again but during the tumultuous time of my early twenties I got lost along the way. That why I kept going back to London. I always knew who I was in London.

Now, at twenty six, in my tiny apartment on Main Street and in between classes and work, I'm figuring it out again.

itsy bitsy teeny weeny

why have I been MIA, you might be asking? I moved. Again. The lease was coming to an end and I went to a new town on a Girls Day to get my nails done and I fell in love with the brick buildings and little cafes with outdoor seating and the duo screen movie theater with its giant neon marquee outside.

So I did what any rational person would do and got online and checked to see if any apartments were available. I didn't factor in distance to the entire life I'd built up in Holland. Didn't consider how parking would work in a metered town, or how inconvenient it would be to see my friends. What's that thing I have...blind determination? Thats it.

But here I am. A mere three weeks after that Girls Day and I live on Main Street in the county seat or whatever that means. By a courthouse and a police station and a Starbucks that's 67 feet from my bathroom. It's the First Apartment I've always wanted. Everyone has to have a scummy one and I'm glad mine is in a secure building in one of the safest towns in one of the safest counties in this weird conservative state. It's got more charm than it knows what to do with which makes it easier to forgive the drawers that don't open all the way, or the way the floor dips by the fridge.

I've been under a mountain of stress lately (new job! new apartment! school! parking tickets!) and I'd love for it to subside, but for now I'm really really pleased to have a place (and a couch) that I can rely on. I made dinner for the first time last night and even though I burnt everything and set off the smoke alarm, I can still say I made it by myself. I'm doing it by myself.