an identity crisis

She looks into the mirror and only sees a warped perception of herself, an image that is constructed by others and false realities. "What is real?" she often questions. "Who am I?". 

She feels lost, consumed by herself so much that she has become utterly disorientated and unaware of who she is.

There has been so much change, and such little time. This fast paced world has left her with no moment to pause, to think, to breathe. Her thoughts are always elsewhere and her body forever moving. The reflection staring back at her is one she tells herself is real but what if it's not? Does she truly know herself at all, or only know an image that society has told her to see?

/ /

School was hard. A level of hard I’ll probably never experience again. 

But after living post-high school for over 6 months now, I can honestly say, this world is on a whole new planet of hard all together. 

Compared to life as a high-school student, post-grad is not hard in the sense of the work load or stresses of deadlines. Whilst many proclaim the hardships of university- impending doom of group assignments, the struggle of early morning lectures and the whole task of independently managing completely everything, I think the difficulties of the post-grad world have nothing to do with actual study. 

Applauses and cheers to those who know what they are doing with their life and are 100% sure with who they are and where they are headed. However, I think it's clear to say that most of us don't know what we are doing. And it's completely understandable, for the notion of picking a whole entire future package which is ultimately permanent is nerve-wracking.

The thing about not being in high school though is that the distractions become limited and you are almost forced to look at yourself head on. The petty dramas and gossip that we could once indulge in become a distant memory and we are just left with an eery quiet noise that only our thoughts can fill.

In high school I used to back up my uncertainty for the future as simply "I just don't know what I want to do". However, looking at it now, it was really, and still is about me just not knowing who I am.

Before graduation, I was able to hide behind the curtains of high school, allowing myself to be defined and moulded by those around me, and what I thought was acceptable. I thought that once high school was over, nothing much would really change, it would all fall into place and that after a few months I'd morph into this adult woman. But here we are, and I am stuck in a reoccurring identity crisis, a turntable stuck on repeat, my mind forever asking,

Who am I? 

Is this a notion that everyone asks, or more importantly, is finding yourself something that can actually be done, or is it just another false precedence we have told one another to ease the pain? 

It's a weird concept, to think we can never even know ourselves, for how can we not know the ins and outs of the body we inhabit. I'm still very much undecided on my view, for these days we are all so influenced and affected by that around us, can we ever really keep up? 

I'd like to think that discovery plays a role in finding who you are and given the right time and effort, one day a beam of light will wash over you, like a lightbulb effect, and you will just know. However, I'm highly doubtful this will happen. 

I think knowing who you are and what you stand for is important, for how are you able to interact and consume yourself with others if you can't understand yourself. However, the ultimate question of "who am I" is one that I don't think there can ever be a definite answer, for it is ever-changing and evolving. 

It's undeniably hard, especially when you are faced head on with yourself, staring into the mirror and must make decisions about the future. The questions of who we are are consuming to say the least, and its easy to find yourself stumbling on this warped path with no idea of the destination. 

I have no solution, for I am still in the dark myself. However, right now, I'm just focusing on just living every day as it is. We shouldn't cower away from solitude and avoid ourselves at all costs, yet we also shouldn't immerse ourselves so fully that we become inexplicably overwhelmed. 

Who we are may find us in the future, or maybe it won't...

- OG