"Who am I?" -The Question Asked by Every Cliched High School Graduate.

I went through a brief period of time--let's say around middle school--where I asked everybody how I should do my hair. If you go check my old Myspace, now an eternal memorial to my childhood memories, you will see polls asking everyone what hair I should go for.

I got a lot of mixed responses: people saying this is how you should look, people saying they like how it looks now, people saying they miss my old hair, and so on.

Nobody could seem to come to a consensus.

In retrospect, I ask myself why I cared so much about my hair. After all, my hair is just what stands upon my head, and it doesn't really reflect who I am. It's just so materialistic. To worry about my hair is to be vain; to spend money trying to do anything with it is to waste money on trying to meet a societal standard. Why do I care?

Why did I care so much? Perhaps it's that it doesn't reflect who I am. I think I have a repressed urge to show everybody who I want to be. I am in a constant state of displeasure because I am constantly waiting--wanting to fulfill who I really want to be. Who I am.

 In reality, I didn't care about anyone's suggestions. I just wanted some measure of exactly how outrageous what I had in mind was. I was asking people what they wanted because I was so afraid to be myself. Typical middle-school bullshit, really. 

To borrow a phrase from Queen: I Want to Break Free.

I know what you're thinking:

Whoa, Eric... you're blogging, talking about your hair, saying you're scared to be yourself, and now you're quoting one of the most flamboyantly homosexual celebrities in the last hundred years? ...Are you finally coming out of the closet? 

No, but I want to!

Not in the way the phrase is commonly used, by any means, but yes, I want to come out of my closet, my shell. I want to take a step--a leap--a bound out of my comfort zone.

I'm tired of being described as enigmatic, a "mystery."  My family, who know my disposition and my general demeanor well, know nothing of my values and my thoughts on the world. My friends just don't spend enough time with me to know anything beyond what little scraps of myself I leave on social networks, and the memories of actions and brief statements I made in high school.

So what do I do?

                 If I've learned anything from these thoughts, I just shouldn't care.