August 8, 2001
The image that you project to other people is an important one. For the past few weeks, the side that seems to come out most is the Turtle side of me. But that has been for only a fews weeks, yet most people would agree that it's the side that they now know me as. It makes me wonder if they have forgotten how I used to be. In April, and even before, I was known as an anime girl, a gamer girl, and the weird girl that walked around campus in 70 degree blazing sun weather in a black duster.
I liked that image I was portraying, because of the simple fact that it was theatrical. At that time in my life, it was good to be a little theatrical, because it got me attention. In the process, most of the time I cheered someone else up. Be it with a witty saying waiting in line for food at the cafeteria, or making someone discard the sterotype that people who dress like someone from the trechcoat mofia are all bad. I would walk up and say "Hi" or give someone a helping hand while I was adorning my duster.
I then think back to something my father said to me in a talk we had. He told me that he felt the reason I dressed out of the norm was for the sole reason of "pissing someone off." That couldn't have been farther from the truth. Sometimes I dress for the sole reason of being a little more "colorful" than the mundane world around me.
As I think about what he said to me that night more and more, I wonder if he was right in some small sense. Maybe I do dress that way to drive someone off. Maybe I do it to irritate someone that I don't know that just happens to be passing by. Maybe I don't want them to get to close to me, become friends, and maybe have a new friend. On the other hand, the people that I do attract into my circle of friends are ones that are as flamboyant as me. And to me...that's a good thing.
So my father can say that I do it to make people mad. I have many layers to my personality. Most of the time I'm a fairly quiet, sociable person. But there are some times when you need a little more color and spice in your life. That's when I have a little fun.
It all boils down to this...
We all have layers to our personalities, you only live once so have some fun, and we need some "colorful" people in the world, or EVERYTHING would be mundane and uninteresting.
-Kimmy