The Youness of Being You

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
-Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr. Suess

This is a topic I ponder all the time: being yourself. The problem with it is that you don't always know who that is. And which "yourself" are you expected to be? Are you yourself when you're with your loved one? With your parents? With your friends? With yourself? And what if "yourself" goes against societal morality?

I'll give you an example:

I have a dear friend who wants to be a girl. He doesn't feel like a boy. On the inside, he isn't. He likes the colour pink and is more ladylike and elegant than I can ever hope of being.

He asked me one day what I thought of him getting a sex change. Now, as a generation, we've been raised to be our "true selves", but we live in a society that is so tied to everything looking and acting a certain way. I must admit, the question had me torn. I'm all for him getting a sex change, don't get me wrong. But I don't like the idea of him being judged simply because he wants to look on the outside how he feels on the inside.

That's when it really became apparent to me. Yourself? It's who you want to be. I didn't like my name, so I decided to go by Alaska. I didn't like my strawberry blonde hair? I dyed it brown (and pink and purple and black and blue and...). Simply, I have always been up for creating myself as who I want to be. That is a part of loving yourself. Changing what you don't like and embracing the things you do.

So, I told my lovely little bird that he should get a sex change. Can you imagine how depressed you would feel if you felt like you lived in a body that isn't your own? How uncomfortable and confusing it would get? Seeing him sad breaks my tiny frozen heart. And knowing that for him it's like living in a cage. Ugh!

So enough! If you don't like something about yourself, change it. We live in a modern world filled with lyposuction and millions of hair colours and plastic surgery! Don't hate yourself or barate yourself. Simply acknowledge what you would like to have changed and then change it.

This goes for the inside as well. How exactly are you supposed to be yourself if you aren't comfortable with yourself?

I hope your thoughts have been well fed the past couple of days! Let me know what you think!

alyeskanstars@gmail.com

Peace Be With You!

Alaska

Also, please look at this beautiful link:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/pictures-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity