I've done a lot of thinking, reading about ADHD, looking at mountainous forests and packed, vibrant cities over the last two weeks. This isn't how I thought my trip would end (in fact it ended far better), and I might have come close to my hope aka drunk tweet before leaving. It's the evening before flying home, so I hope you'll all pardon some real dork-ass navel gazing.
I've spent a good part of my life trying to shape myself into the right person: someone my parents would be proud of, that teachers would like, that would be a person people wanted as a friend. I've been called abrasive, tactless, loud, annoying, judgemental, etc. After going too far one way, I looked back and realized I didn't know who the fuck I actually was. Every part of me had been stripped away and buried, leaving someone just so empty of experience and personality.
So I threw myself into the other direction. Tried to embrace my flaws, find a way to make them fit into my environment, draw more, do more, be more than I was. And that kinda failed too.
As I was reading Focus Forward, a book about managing emotional turmoil and sensitivity from ADHD, he mentioned changing the context would help regulate the emotions. And it was sort of an epiphany. It's not impossible, but terribly difficult to change who we are by force. We are not clay, to be pushed and shaped into the right person. But, in the right place, with the right people, those forces can gently guide you and reinforce your better parts.
I've only one other obligation to finish in Michigan, then I can finally go. It won't be easy, and I'm sure to fuck up a lot, but it'll finally give me a chance to be more than what my work, my friends, and even my family have come to see me as.
Also fucking real minimum wage like yesterday, universal healthcare and a fucking national vacation time standard because everyone deserves to spend time getting up in their own existential business.
And day drink. (Same thing, really)