When the Metamorphosis Would Not Come, Acceptance Was the Only Answer

I am who I am.

There may be moments where I wish to be somebody else, but I cannot be anyone but me.

My hips crack if I bend over too far. Only one knuckle cracks when I attempt to release the trapped air inside of my joints. My belly bulges more than I would care for it to. My left foot is slightly bigger than my right, which makes finding comfortable shoes a little difficult. I cannot put eyeliner on the same way on each eye as my left one opens up a little wider. When I have cried and gone to sleep afterwards, I wake up with eyes that refuse to open all the way, covered with lids that fold three times instead of two. My right front tooth is chipped because the filling that was put there following a root canal broke away. My cuticles are ripped and tough and all-around unfeminine. The fingers on my left hand are calloused from my many attempts at playing the guitar.

But I am me. I am who I have come to be over these twenty-three years.

I am the girl who hid under the basement stairs, making up stories and games with imaginary friends. I am the girl who found solace in climbing every tree possible, perched in its branches, viewing the world from what seemed a wondrous height. I am the girl who saved earthworms from the dampened piles of leaves that collected at the curb as her father was raking. I am the girl who could be entertained on long car rides with a paper bag full of books, crayons, coloring books, and word games. I am the girl who needed her mother and grandmother to help her hit all of the arcade alligators as they came out of their hiding holes. I am the girl who made her father ride the log flume in Busch Gardens dozens of times, who laughed each and every time he pretended to be surprised when they suddenly plummeted to earth.

I am the girl who spent her time in the library with her friends in high school. I am the girl who had a radio show every Tuesday afternoon. I am the girl who played melancholy songs about love lost and love unrequited, followed by a song that made her dance around the room. I am the girl who went to a predominantly white-bred college located in the middle of the ghetto. I am the girl who struggled with herself and her identity for her entire life. I am the girl who cried herself to sleep because she did not know who she was or, more importantly, why she was. I am the girl who dreamed of a woman she cannot remember, but knew once. I am the girl who contemplated taking her own life because she could not reconcile all of these differences. I am the girl who found renewed hope in life and in people after staring Death in the face. I am the girl who found God through religion, only to lose Him again, then find a form of Him in another religion. I am the girl who still cannot decide what she wants to do with her life or where she wants to go. I am the girl with too many interests and too many hobbies and too short an attention span. I am the girl who cried over boys who broke her heart when she foolishly gave it to them, hoping that "this one" would be different. I am the girl who found love in a man who caught her by surprise. I am the girl who closes her eyes when she kisses this man, even though she could stare at him for days. I am the girl whose hand he takes and squeezes when they are walking. I am the girl who stares through these eyes and inhabits this body.

I am who I am.

You cannot ask me to be more. You cannot ask me to be less. You do not have to accept me for all of these things. You do not have to like me for any of these things.

But I can be no one else.

I can only be

Me.