About a year or so ago, I brought in a CD of the soundtrack to the movie Mulan for Kelly, my counselor, to listen to, particularly one song in the movie that got my attention. This song, Reflection, was, and still is, my favorite song. In this song, Mulan asks herself “Who is that girl I see staring straignt back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don't know? When will my reflection show who I am inside?” Reflection describes how I feel fairly well, I said to Kelly. That was when she asked me if she should bring a mirror in and have me tell her what, or rather, who I saw.
She never did bring in a mirror, but as I was driving home from an evening get-together with my friends, I was listening to the pop version of Reflection, and I found myself thinking about some of the questions asked in the song. Who is the person I see staring straight back at me when I look at my reflection? Now I realize that if I was to analyze my “reflection,” I would not be looking at myself, but I would be looking at someone else entirely. Someone who is trying to please others and trying not to do the wrong thing. In doing this, in trying to please others, this person is unable to “be himself,” or more appropriately, herself.
For me, this lead to collapse; I was clearly not working at my full potential, and my teachers and school counselor knew it. Whether or not they knew the true cause of this is unclear, and at the moment, inconsequential. Some of them attributed it to the Internet, and they were partially right. The Internet provided an escape for me, a place where I could be myself without worrying about what others thought or trying to maintain an image. I buckled under the pressure of trying to live up to what was expected of me, and later maintain two seperate identities, only to discover later that the two identities, two personas, are so intertwined that they really are inseperable; they were merely two different aspects of the whole: me.
Throughout my life, I've been made fun of by my peers for “acting like a girl.” As a child in elementary school, I didn’t believe that girls had “cooties,” and around second grade, I was taunted because my best friend at the time was a girl. (“____ and ____ sitting in a tree… K-I-S-S-I-N-G…”) As I got older, attitudes changed, but it wasn’t really much different; apparently teenage boys and girls couldn’t simply be good friends without being involved in a romantic relationship. It took me a while to get over the teasing and taunting, but when it was all over, I realized something. I act like a girl because I am a girl. (Difficult for some to understand, I know…) “Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me?” At first glance, I don’t see a girl, but as I look closer, past the façade, digging a little deeper and going past the shell that has been built up over the years, she is waiting for her chance. “Now I see if I wear a mask, I can fool the world, but I cannot fool my heart.” It’s long past time to take off the mask, the male mask that was not really ever capable of fooling either the world or a female heart… my heart.
My friends now, the few people I can still call friends, are mostly supportive, although they have given me some mixed reactions. Some of them still keep in touch with me through letters, phone calls, or e-mails, while others have mysteriously disappeared from my life. Most don’t really care what I do, although a few of them try to be supportive and listen when I need someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on.
Sometimes I wonder where I’ll be in the future, who my friends will be, and what sort of people I’d be around. There’s also the traditional 10 year high school reunion, which my friend Michelle said she isn’t planning on attending unless she’s married… I myself don’t really understand that, but that’s Michelle for you. (As a side note, I hope you do decide to attend… you know who you are. ;)) How will people who I once knew react? Will I be accepted? Will it be just another boring party spent hanging around the punch bowl? Or will I spend my time in the restroom crying, with a friend there trying to get me to cheer up? Hopefully that won’t come to pass and I’ll actually enjoy myself there… It’s too soon and too far ahead to tell, really…