Had a really good conversation with Nancy today, one which made me realize exactly how much I have conformed to what other people have wanted me to be.

There is a theme in my life, apparently: I am allowed to be an individual, but not too much.  I can step outside the box, but not too far away from it.  When what I want is still, maybe while abnormal in comparison to everyone else, in the confines of "acceptable/professional/etc.," then I receive no pushback.  A few looks, perhaps, but nothing that would make me question what I wanted.

But when I step too far away, or want to step too far away, that's different.  And even, my "too far away" is very different from others in my life.  I remember growing up I wanted to express myself in ways different from how my older sisters did.  Example - I wanted to dye my hair with red streaks.  I was allowed, with caution, because otherwise it would be "crazy" and "unprofessional" and all that.  There was one time where my oldest sister was redoing it before she had to leave for somewhere (at her insistence) and ended up putting more in than originally intended.  While I liked the result - it was all red and awesome looking imo - my parents screamed at me and said it was my fault for rushing her, etc., etc.  In response I locked myself in my room and played violent video games for a few hours and then showering more than a few times a day after that in order to get it to fade.

Even here, I've been told to do certain things different from what I wanted because what I wanted was too outside of what everyone else was doing.  I remember a fight I had with one of the roommates where he told me to change something in a paper because it wasn't what our professor believed and that I should just put what she wanted to hear.  I got angry because I thought that was a cop-out, that I shouldn't change my theory simply to fit the mold of what she wanted.  I liked my own theory, even though it was different.  We ended up yelling at each other and I took a long walk with Callie afterwards.

This theme has come up many times; this idea that some of the things I want are too "strange" or whatnot and therefore I must not do them.  Still, there are things I want to do and have which I have been fearful of obtaining due to these past experiences.  I suppose they've been engraved in my mind: even though I want this thing, how acceptable is it to have?  I remember getting yelled at, having fights, and being guilted into doing things other than what I truly desired. And this theme has been so reoccurring that I just put off everything and have become a shell of the person I wanted to be.  I've forced myself into a box that I don't really want to be in, because I'm afraid of the reaction I will get if I try to step out again.

But...I would like that to change.  I really would.