Who I Am

I haven't been on the internet much for the past week or so, so that's why I stopped updating frequently. Not that it really matters for my readership of two or three people, but anyway.
This post is going to get slightly more personal than the last few, but I have learned the power of the presence of the author's voice. I'm rather passionate about this issue and it's a large part of my life, so I decided that I simply had to write about it.

I have felt for a long time that music always makes me feel better. If you've been around me when I'm extraordinarily upset, one defense mechanism is to go lay on my bed and listen to music alone. I've used this strategy many a time. Even when I'm just feeling a bit down, listening to certain music almost inevitably makes me feel better. But there's more to it than a simple mood change. While music can often affect my emotions, I feel like there's more going on when I listen in. It's not easy to explain, but when I listen to music I sometimes feel more like myself than I do at other times. Honestly, it feels like a liberation. The question is, from what?

I've thought a lot about this, and many things have become gradually more clear to me over the last year or so. Basically, I've grown up being told I have to do certain activities, like certain things, think in certain ways. Luckily, I have been spared the cruel punishment of growing up being taught such things by my parents, but none can escape the influence of other sources such as peers and the media. Why are these messages being sent? Well, I can think of two reasons I happen to know a good deal about: race and gender.

I've grown up with mostly white friends. I cannot count the number of times someone has told me that I don't "act black". This always struck me as inconsequential, as I never self-identified as black. I never had much of a concept of race growing up apart from these somewhat awkward exchanges, although I understood ethnicity. My dad was from Guinea (West African country for those who do not know) and my mom was from here and that was that. Skin color difference explained. But I didn't really think about race. I never understood why my friends expected me to act "black". My family never did and neither did my friends. But for some unexplained reason, I didn't fit. I wasn't really black but I also wasn't white. Even though I didn't really understand it, there was no place for me racially.

The gender aspect of this problem was much more pervasive in my life, and continues to plague me to this very day. It started early with my love of reading. As a boy, I was supposed to love sports and be very active and shit like that. But I preferred reading by myself. As an older child and into adolescence, this became a problem for me. In the social pecking order, such activities earned me the convenient label of nerd. Other things also impacted my place in the social sphere of growing up. I was never particularly competitive (except for during foosball, perhaps) or assertive. I learned how to be funny. While I loved attention, I never felt comfortable being a leader. I really liked being nice to other people. While many of these traits are definitely MY qualities, you'll notice that they don't really intersect with the masculine ideal. While many people might say that these are things they like about me, not all of them (in fact, a minority of them) are what men are supposed to be like. Until relatively recently, and with notable exceptions, this has led to me having an abundance of friends but a definite lack of respect from other people. I have had the distinct feeling that a lot of people I knew didn't dislike me, but didn't really think all that much of me.

I spoke of notable exceptions, and I want to identify two of them in particular: Creative Kids Camp (a summer drama camp I attended while younger and work at now) and Longsdorff (the substance-free dorm at my college). I could go on at length about either, but the reason I value them both so highly is that in both places, I felt that people accepted me for who I was. I could be myself, in all my nerdy, nonmasculine, weird, dramatic glory. Nobody made fun of me for it. Nobody thought any less of me for enjoying any god-damn thing I wanted to. And that, I have come to learn, is rare.

Now, back to the music. Yesterday I had a rather shitty afternoon/evening but hadn't been able to fully articulate why. Although I woke up feeling better, something was building within me as an answer this question. It came to a head in an epiphany I had while cleaning the bathroom and listening to "Will I" from Rent. I'd come close to such a realization in the past, but it never came together so completely before. I'd felt the same emotions before as well, but rarely with the same clarity. As with other Rent songs, I sang along with the words. The song didn't speak directly to my predicament, but the raw emotion behind the song was powerfully similar. There was a definite feeling of being trapped, and a desperate wish for compassion. I have feelings like that every day when I have to conceal parts of who I am to fit in with other people and conform. I don't like doing it, but I often get the feeling that I have to anyway. As I sang along, the music took on a new meaning for me. I sang my unhappiness at the feelings I have to endure every day but I also sang my defiance. The action itself wasn't masculine but I didn't care because I like Rent and that is part of who I am and I don't care if people don't like it and I'm going to do it anyway. I sang my joy at breaking free, even temporarily, from the stranglehold I'd been placed in. I felt exhilarated and happy and above all else liberated.

That is why listening to music makes me feel more like myself and that is why I don't fucking like gender roles. Now wouldn't it be nice if I could also feel that much like myself outside of a select group of friends and not only while listening to music? That's the world I want to live in.