IRELAND!

I realize that I am due for another tour update, and am now choosing to ignore that to talk a little bit about myself instead.
Why?
Well, because I'm a girl, aren't I? And we enjoy drawing attention to ourselves, don't we?

Yes obviously.

If you don't believe me, just watch a few sitcoms. Or reality TV. Or real life, if you're so inclined to walk out the front door.
We're self conceited creatures - females. It's in our nature.
The only thing possibly more so would be the males of our world, I'd think, and only then because they are not willing to admit it.

Is this not what blogs are for? Talking about yourself? You? Oneself? The individual? (I'm never quite sure what word to use in that instance.)

Now that I have sufficiently diverted your attention from the fact that this post is not about Ireland, (though the title clearly states otherwise) I would like to point out a few discoveries I have made over the past few days...
No.
Discovery is the wrong word.
More like a realization, I'd say.
I think one would use the word discovery to describe a new find - and I'm not so sure these are new finds, just things I have never noticed before.
It's quite easy to not notice things when they are about you.


Realizations:
My voice.
All my life (to this point), I have heard quite a different voice in my head then that heard by others. As such I have always found it quite difficult to listen to recordings of myself, and have been known to freak out when forced to in any circumstance. As this statement is true to most every individual, especially the female individual, and as countless people have and will attempt to give me very boring scientific detail as to the reasoning behind this natural occurrence, I will interject here to state that I do not care why these natural things are so.
That gravity works, and that it works on everybody is enough for me. This is perhaps one reason why a belief and knowledge in a God comes so easily to me, and is perhaps why many people find me so insufferable a companion or friend.

But that is not the 'realization' I have come to.
I already knew that bit.
And just to infuriate you more, I'm going to skip ahead to the next bit, instead of explaining the rest of this one.


Mint, strawberries and the color pink.
These are all things I have told the entire world I hate. They are also all things that I honestly believed I did hate until very recently in life. Mint makes my tongue burn, strawberries my throat, and pink - my eyes. I avoided all three like the plague, and told anyone who offered to shove off and leave me well alone. Naturally, things change in life...we being to enjoy tastes we did not before. Sometimes we adapt to the culture of change and we begin to notice what was once invisible to the child...
But as I am still a child I do not think this is the case.

I now eat mint just for fun.
I buy not only strawberries, but all berries when I can afford.
Yes, even raspberries.
And I am wearing pink underwear right now.
(Stop giggling. It's a completely normal word).


Finally, Love.
I have absolutely no idea what this word means.
Nor have I ever.
I'm not even going to attempt to explain this right now.



Now that I've told you of the three things currently playing most in my mind (seriously - it's like a bloody circus. They won't let down), let me tell you what has come from it all.



Conclusion:
I am, in fact, a girl.

I know, a bit of a let down. I'm sure you all knew that already. But I didn't. At least not entirely.

The past 20 years of my life have been spent in the constant company of men. Six brothers, one father, lots of friends who were boys, cousins, uncles, grandpas, the friends of my brothers...I don't care what your average 16 years old heartbreak tells you - men are everywhere. What I did not realize until this point, however, is how great of an influence they have been on my life: How much I have patterned myself - despite the gender of my birth - after their characteristics.
No, again that is the wrong word...
Let's go with attributes.

I have given myself (quite delusionally) the attributes of men, because I have been surrounded by men my entire life.

I know it sounds ridiculous.
Just hear me out.

I hear a much deeper, manlier voice in my head because as I was growing up those are the voices I heard most around me. I grew up 'hating' mint and strawberries because they reminded me of things like Hello Kitty and romance novels. (Don't ask me to explain this one - it's far too complicated). Pink explains itself, and I have never understood love because I have forever been surrounded by boys who also did not understand love - nor had any desire to.


Now take everything I have just told you and put a big X through it.
That's what I did just now (or rather ten minutes ago when I began this post) when I came to the true understanding of what these fake 'realizations' meant.

Again my conclusion - that I am, in fact, a girl, and that I have always been a girl.

My voice does not magically change when I hear it on a recording. It has always been exactly as it is now. The only real explanation for the difference (science aside) is mentality. I have told myself that my voice sounds like a mans, and so it sounds like a man. It takes some real concentration on my part - but I can actually hear what most others hear when I speak now. I actually hear the annoying little girl who talks way too much.
For some reason it wasn't so annoying when it sounded like a man.

I have always loved mint, strawberries and the color pink. Every memory, thought or statement I have said otherwise was again, pure mentality.
While I may have thought the 'burning sensation' of mint was undesirable, it was still my preferred type of toothpaste for (and I quote) "the fresh feeling it gives afterward." I ate (and still eat) thin mints when I thought no one is looking, and I always took gum when it was offered (even when a "well I don't really like mint" excuse was given). Strawberry was and has always been one of my favorite flavors, and my excuse for not eating the actual fruit growing up was that I did not like the texture of the berry. Yet, I cannot remember actually trying one before I was 14. In fact, I think the first time I remember eating a whole berry was at a bridal shower for a girl in the ward. I only ate it because it was covered in chocolate...or at least that's what I said after the first two. Five later and I had no excuse. I loved strawberries. Still do.
Especially dipped in chocolate.

There is a pink lamp in my room that I have had since I was about 8.
I sleep with a pink blanket almost every night. A baby blanket, in fact - that I have had since I was born. And within the past few years my closet has grown to resembled something eerily similar to a pink rose garden I saw in London just a few weeks ago.

That's not all. I also loved playing with Barbies, even if I didn't own any growing up, and had dreams about princesses on a regular basis. I played dress up with actual dresses, had crushes on boys as early as age 6, gossiped, giggled, worried about how I looked, played matchmaker with friends, painted my nails and pretended to not want makeovers during parties...I watched girly shows and read girly books...I was obsessed with fashion everywhere (even if I did not apply it to myself) and would often watch something just because I thought the girls outfits were cute...I planned dream weddings, picked out baby names, daydreamed about wearing fancy dresses and going to fancy balls...I mean honestly? I couldn't have been more girly if I had tried.

And yet how could I have been so convinced I was a tomboy? So convinced that I had not a girly bone in my body? So delusional that I would tell people I did not care or think about love when it has most likely been the only thing on my mind since I could walk?

Well, because I told myself so.
Because I heard the voices around me and told myself I was just like them.

Are you getting it yet?

You've probably had it from the beginning, and I've just been ranting nonsense this whole time - purely for my benefit, of course.
That's probably another apt definition for a blog - 'rants for ones own benefit'.



Basically, it took me almost 21 years to realize that I have never, in my life, been a boy, and that all these 'new found discoveries' that I suddenly like boys, or suddenly enjoy dressing up are total nonsense. It was all there before, I just masked it behind the picked up attributes of those that surrounded me.

There's a lesson in this, I'd say. Perhaps it's that you can try to change who you are, or you cannot, but no matter what you try - there is a real you down there, and he or she will come out eventually to say 'Wise up stupid. You've always been you.'

Or perhaps it's that blogs are never really a good idea, and that all journals that have been written in should be dowsed in lighter fluid and set on fire.

Yeah.
I'm done.

Real post on Ireland tomorrow.
I promise.