Who am I? I wonder. Who am I?
Am I the reader, the writer, the crossword puzzler? Am I the thinker, the ponderer, the academic? Am I my cognitive self?
Am I the one who laughs too loud, too quickly, too much? The one who farts and says you're welcome, who talks to her hands in class, who calls every dog a puppy? Am I the crybaby? Am I the sentimental fool? Am I the feelings I feel so completely yet hide so abruptly?
Am I the blubber belly, the dry skin, thin hair, too-broad shoulders? Am I the unpublished, uncreative writer? Am I my insecurities?
Am I the needy crybaby? Am I the indifferent, aloof, emasculating bitch? Am I too much? Not enough? Too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right things?
I don't know who I am, and I keep thinking that if I had a clue, I wouldn't feel so fucked up. I try to turn off the faucet, but it's constantly dripping: "You're too much, too much, too much. Be less, be smaller, shut the fuck up."
I don't know who I am and I think everyone's playing me because poor, poor Kanani. I think people pity me and they're nice folks so they play nice to me. They see that I'm struggling and move to support me so of course I get angry. Of course I do. I don't need your pity, I don't want your pity, and really, I don't need YOU, so fuck off.
So I keep thinking that healthy Kanani won't need anyone. That when I finally figure shit out, like who I am and what I want and what I need and what my boundaries are and how to maintain them and how to communicate and how to be angry, I won't need anyone. How fucked up is that? I'm so terrified of wanting people in my life, of having healthy love in my life, of requiring a certain level of mutual respect, that my version of healed is a lonely house on a hill.
I have been fighting with my own self for the last few days, and I am very sad. I am very confused. And I am so fucking irritated with myself. I am too scared to provide what the protective little girl inside me needs, and when others show me that grace, I push it away.
Healthy Kanani wants to be pulled close. She wants to be known and seen and cherished. Please don't give up on me.
