Just Be Yourself

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."-Oscar Wilde

Haven't we all heard that one before. I'm sure if you ask anyone that knows me they'll say that I know who I am and what I want and that I know where I'm going, but I don't. And that's exactly my point. Even if I look as free as the bird singing out your window, sometimes I feel that there are chains shackled to me. Holding me tight. I feel like everyone wants an answer. What are you going to be when you grow up? Don't you remember being asked that by your parents? For a while, I thought it was just a fun game like I Spy, but one day, it dawned on me that my parents were curious as to what I wanted to be so that they could prepare me for just that-even if I was just seven years old. Maybe that's not true, but that's what it feels like to me. What if I had said that I wanted to be a free spirit when I grew up? What would they have done then? Told me that it wasn't a career or that it didn't give me money to support myself. It's just like when a kid says that he wants to be Superman when he grows up. They all immediately team up to discourage the little boy from being a hero and saving lives with a cape on. A badge is much better suiting. I think this is where the lack of male dreamers stems from. Boys dream too, it's just that sometimes, their dreams are different. The people that I'm most scared to be myself around are sometimes my family and friends. Because what I want would inconvenience them, so why wish for something so selfish when I can keep it to myself and just move on, being happy with what I've always had. Even if it's different now. I've been scared to answer questions with a justifiable I don't know. Sometimes, I just. Don't. Know. And that's okay. I don't have to know what I want to be when I grow up. I can want to be a dozen different things at the same time and not know which one I'll choose until I look up and realize my surroundings and that I'm actually doing it. Until then, world, I just don't know is who I am.