Who am I? It's cliche, but it's a question that I've asked myself constantly in my 20s. There have been a lot of times where I question how I behave in certain settings, the faces I show people, and ultimtately how this reflects on my person. I would feel guilty for having these different "faces" because it had to mean I was inauthentic. That if I stripped away these personas and looked at my core being, I couldn't tell you who I was. Sure, I could give vague qualities, viewpoints, and general personality traits, but at the end of the day I couldn't concretely define what makes me, me. That is an incredibly frustrating feeling, and it was something I've always challenged myself to work on because it just feels like shit to not know the answer to such a simple question and because it'd feel even worse to wander through my entire life never having lived or even known how to live the way I really want. How can you find happiness and a life well lived if you can't define what that even looks like or really means to you? This quest I set out on has been a long time coming, and undoubtedly it will be much longer still—but that is not to say I haven't made progress. In fact, I think that search is a large reason I wanted to create this website in the first place—to enrich the connections I have with my close friends and family because they are a fundamental element of who I am.

I'd been mulling over this thought the past few months for several different reasons/trains of thought. The first came in the form of a question in bed at night, of course. I was ruminating on how I interacted with people I had been on a few dates with at the time. Asking myself if it was authentic or if it was how I "should" be acting to attract the person I'm looking for or comparing it to how I'd act if I just happened to run into someone I was interested in randomly at a bar/party instead of a planned first time meetup where you're both gauging a relationship with this random person or a million other related questions. I still don't really have an answer to that because online dating is interesting, but that's a whole other can of worms and isn't really the purpose behind this post. Eventually the question drifted towards well if I wanted to succinctly show the true me could I point them to this website? At first I said yes of course, but then I thought about it longer and hesitated to say if this really captures the true me. Am I being authentic and genuine in my posts here? By and large, I think yes. These thoughts are all real thoughts I have and am interested in sharing with those close to me. Naturally, this also means it could be skewed to only show the positivity of my life (similar to how someone's instagram isn't really representative of their everyday life). I recognized that, but I also think it is 100% more intimate and real than a social media profile. Many of the thoughts and stories so far are mundane or just reflections on normal trips with friends or just life in general (obviously would like to post more but heh that requires work/motivation and sometimes I'm lazy/busy). Obviously, there are also many thoughts I don't share here because a.) this isn't really supposed to be a journal and b.) yall aren't my therapists. I don't think that detracts from this website revealing more of the "real" me for those that are interested and that I want to share with. Like the poems and other blabbings were written with real emotions and thoughts behind them because I don't really give a fuck to write about stuff that doesn't resonate with me (and I doubt anyone wants to read that shit either).

This line of thought throughout the weeks led to other conclusions that I wanted to put into words. It connected my guilt of being fake to more concrete acceptance and association of these "faces" with the media I've consumed. One of these shows was Kaguya Sama Love is War, which is a romcom anime that is honestly amazing but most of yall won't like it because you lack the culture ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry not sorry. I'll spare you most the details but at a certain point when the main characters finally kiss and acknowledge there's feelings between the two, Kaguya starts behaving very coldly to the man she loves and who loves her (Ice Queen Kaguya!). This pissed me off at first because it was illogical, fake/playing games, and ruining her chances because the dumb boy thought this meant she didn't like him, but I realized this actually wasn't inauthentic on her part. While she did have different faces she was showing, they were all genuinely part of who she was. Growing up in a billionaire, abusive, cut-throat, etc. family led her to develop this persona to adapt. If Shirogane couldn't accept and love this part of her, then it wasn't meant to be, not that she was "testing" him but more that it's natural to fall into these different personas that make us up. This similar type of questioning was also explored in Severance. Exploring who we are if we strip away all preconceived notions and knowledge. Who we are at work, with our family, with our spouses, alone, etc. Ultimately, these themes in media, talking with friends/family, and this journey to finding myself have made me realize it's not just me who deals with these doubts and questioning. Everyone experiences it— and it is normal to behave differently at work, to interact with friend groups differently, to maybe be nervous and less your self on a hinge first date as opposed to flirting with some random girl at a bar, to have no filter around your family. And that probably seems very obvious because it is, but for whatever reason it wasn't always for me in college/post-grad. I'd feel bad for sometimes being reserved or quiet because I was tired when spending time with my family, whereas I'd be super energetic when going out with friends. Or for talking differently with frat friends. Or for being quiet, nerdy, ridiculous, or brooding when by myself. Or for getting in fist-fights with my brother when I lose a game to him, but being uncompetitive with anyone else. I realized none of these are necessarily inauthentic on the surface; these faces still define and are worn by me. Some may need to recharge before being worn again or are grown out of entirely, but that's just part of being a human and the complex emotions that come with that. And lastly, I realized somewhere along the way that it's okay to not have a logical textbook definition of who you are. That doesn't make you fake or shallow or lost; it makes you a normal person living life in search of that answer every day.