Born This Way

This may be news to some of you, or maybe you already know, but back in April - in honor of my 18th birthday - I officially "came out" though I had been more privately "out" for a while now.

And since June is Pride Month, what better time to write a post about it!

I AM AN ASEXUAL PANROMANTIC!!!!! And I couldn't be happier about it! AND a much more recent discovery revealed that I'm also Genderfluid!

Asexual, Meaning:

•  I do not feel sexual attraction.

Panromantic, Meaning: 

• I can feel romantic attraction to any and all genders.

Genderfluid, Meaning

• My gender identity (not to be confused with gender expression) shifts and flows between 'female,' 'neutral,' and 'male.' So, for example: Yesterday I was female, but a few days ago I was male, and today I'm more in the middle.

There is a type of peace that comes with learning something about yourself, and knowing how to accept it. For a long time I didn't know how to reconcile all this with my faith. But why would a God that says ALL Love is pure and perfect and good, stop and say "but not that Love." 
When I accepted the idea that being something other than "straight" was not a sin, I immediately felt a peace and happiness wash over me that I had never felt before. And a few months after that, I realized that I'm Asexual and Panromantic. It took me much longer to realize my Genderfluidity, and a lot had to happen for me to see it, including:

1. As a child I would fluctuate between tomboy and girly-girl (forms of expression that aren't necessarily linked to gender identity)
2. When planning outfits in my head I would sometimes accidentally envision myself as a guy, but not realize it for a few minutes
3. The fact that I was more comfortable in the guys dressing room, during some shows, and the girls during others.
4. knowing that I still sometimes 100% identify as female, while other times not.
5. when this exchange happened:

Person 1 - "Oh no, I almost broke a nail," runs to take care of the issue

Person 2 - "I'm so glad I'm not a woman right now,"  

Me - "Same here. oh wait..."

SO YEAH! This journey has been wild and terrifying. Terrifying, because of the possible backlash, and wild because it's so not at all who I used to think that I would become. But like I said, I couldn't be happier with who I am!

Fighting For A Dream

Come to think of it, it's a popular theme for movies.

Basically every Disney movie ever.

And just like in those movies, it's not easy. It really is a fight. If life is a war zone, which side will you choose?

The one you believe in? Or the one you think will win?

- - - - - - - - - -

Living in the arts is hard. Whether you are a dancer, a painter, a singer, a musician, an actor... if you are creating art. Likely you are struggling.
I can't speak for you, so I won't try to. But here's my part of the story.

I'm kinda new to this. To the art scene. Though, growing up I drew pictures all the time, and coloring pages were a part of everyday, and dancing in my room was a frequent thing, I wrote stories, and I constantly played games which required nothing more than my imagination - and some variation on elevation. I was creative. But I didn't realize the importance of it all. And I didn't know that it could be a passion. A career.
Now I'm a theatre kid, a costumer, a dancer, an artist. Because now it's a work of passion, that I'm fighting for.
I want to do this, to do art, for the rest of my life. I want nothing else.
I don't have a back-up plan. I know I'll have hard times. I know that it won't pay well. I know what so many people think when they hear that I'm a theatre major.
I'm not naive. I'm not an idiot. I just don't want to be stuck doing something that will drain the life out of me. I want to fight for what I love. And that's art.

I don't know if I'll "succeed" or make it big. I might never be known. But I suppose that I never try then I'm destroying the possibility.
I don't know what I'll create, or even what medium I'll use. I could film something, choreograph something, write something, paint, draw, photograph. I could use wood, metal, water, words, colors, movement, sounds, or light. Or all of the above. Because why limit yourself? If you have something to share then use WHATEVER you want and/or need to use. Don't stop yourself because you think it might not be liked, or it might not turn out well, or you've never done it before. Fear is the prison of art.
Also. Just have fun. Take time to play. Your subconscious mind can be WAY smarter and more talented than your conscious mind. So let it take over. Don't stress. No time spent in art will have been wasted.
And let yourself be YOU. Don't force yourself into some mold that someone else made. Break the rules. Be you. Do you.

My way of smashing the fences, is that I'm going to audition for roles that I actually want and connect to. Instead of what I think I'll be cast as. I want to play the crazy people, the evil people, the hurting people. I want to play parts that were originally written for guys.

I need to follow where my heart is leading. Which may sound like a bad idea. It's definitely a scary one. But I don't know how to live without passion. If i were to do something else... something safer... I really wouldn't be living.

Art is my life. And I wouldn't ask for it any other way. 

My Sleep-Deprived Adventures

[I apologize if none of this makes sense. I'm not exactly in a mental state that is capable of screening my writing.]

Aside from a 45 minute nap yesterday(?) afternoon I have been awake for 37 hours*.

I've had trouble sleeping / had a messed up sleep schedule for quite a while now, and I think that I can safely say that I have tasted sleep-deprivation.
2016 was a crazy year for everyone, and for me it was a continuation plus magnification of the craziness of 2015. For about a year after the beginning of my life and the finding of theatre I held up really well, but then in February 2016 I started getting tired. But did I slow down? No. In fact I did something which I had vowed not to do after doing in the year before: three shows at once. Now, if you aren't familiar with theatre you might not understand the insanity of that so here is a quick diagram illustration.

x + x = X

1 show/production requires X amount of: energy (also seen in the forms of: time, blood, sweat, and tears.)

In order to function your body needs to retain X amount of energy.

And lets say that my life has XXXx of our slowly replenishing resources of the afore mentioned items.  

Most healthy people would have approximately... more than me. And they would spend 1 on work/school, 1 on social life + hobbies, and then if they are in theatre they'll spend 1 on that. 

anywho. I was in 3 shows at the same time. now i don't have a social life or work, but i did have school. so lets do the math (i'm terrible at math AND analogies so hang in there) we have

• Kayla = XXXx  
• 1 show (x3) = XXX
• school (two light semesters) = X
• energy used for life = X

which becomes 

XXXx minus XXXXX 

which means I'm in debt. 

whether that made any sense i don't know.

So what happens when you are awake too long? well according to my five minutes of research, when you reach 36-48 hours of consciousness, you gain appetite (which is actually good for me) some times hallucinate or blur reality with fiction, your powers of memorization get bad, likelihood of making bad decisions goes way up and:

 "One of the things that happens when you're sleep deprived is that your ability to regulate emotions goes haywire. Your brain becomes disorganized in its capacity to process information and your sensitivity to information also get scrambled," says Jason Silva, the host of "Brain Games."**

in my personal experience things have mostly just been silly. I laugh at everything. I play with my face, and in general act like a toddler. my brain jumbles words and letters, my typing is greatly hindered (this writing has been a challenge), my eyes might refuse to focus, and when i sit still i start to lose feeling in my body - not like numbness, but more like my consciousness is withdrawing, leaving behind the molt. I have a few times nearly fallen asleep standing, my mind goes blank and i sway without the ability to do anything about it or even to tell if its real.

people have said that if you are kept awake for too long you will go insane, but i've also heard that the human body will perform a forced restart and make you pass out - much like a sim who wasn't taken care of. so in that case, if you are being forcefully kept awake wouldn't the cause of the not sleeping be the cause of the insanity? and not the act of not sleeping?

{edit} OH YEAH!  I remember now where I was going with the theatre talk. I was gonna say, that I've been sleep deprived since last summer when I nearly destroyed myself with the combination of how much I was doing and how little I was eating and sleeping. I've lived how ever many months with the symptoms but just kept going. Until Christmas when I decided that I wouldn't go back to MCC this semester - which was a good choice, cuz im getting better! I haven't managed to take as much of a theatre break as I had planned though...

SO YEAH.
that was me. rambling on while sleep deprived.



* I went over the math to check my numbers like 10 times.
** apparently there's a great episode of Brain Games that covers this but I wouldn't be able to process it right now, so I'll watch it later.

Favorite Screen Characters tag

Well, I was unofficially tagged for this a very long time ago, but I am only now getting around to posting it.
I am supposed to list my top 10 favorite screen characters.
So here we go!
I'll try to limit it to one character per movie/show.
Alright, in no particular order.
This is REALLY hard.

10. Ugh! I just can't choose!!! The main three from Yuri!!! On Ice

9. Felicity Smoak from Arrow

8. Parker from Leverage

7. Abby from N.C.I.S.

6. Patrick Jane from the tv show The Mentalist. This guy is just something else.

5. Zuko from Avatar: the last Airbender. It was really hard deciding on just one of them, but I finally picked Zuko because of his awesome character development.

4. Hawkeye in The Avengers and all of his movies.

3. Loki in: all his movies.

2. Cisco Ramon from The Flash

1. Sherlock/Sherlock Holmes (they count as one!) - Ronald Howard, and Benedict Cumberbatch!!!

* none of the pictures belong to me, I found them through google.

"...If the world turned upside down..."

OK SO, if you know me then you probably know that I love musicals. They're kinda what my life revolves around...

...almost literally...

Anyway. One of the shows that I'm almost constantly listening to is: Finding Neverland.

Now, I haven't seen it, and though I have listened to it A LOT, I might have some things wrong.

It tells the story of author/playwright J. M. Barrie, and how he came to write the beloved tale of Peter Pan, the boy that never grows up. It covers topics such as self-identity, the rough road of being a writer, and keeping a childlike heart even as you grow older.

The music and lyrics are so beautiful and fun! I love every bit of it. And the cast recording has fabulous performers such as Matthew Morrison, and Laura Michelle Kelly, giving their beautiful voices to the show.


The songs resonate with me, and I feel like I can relate to the characters. I connect to them.


I love it.

You should too.

But if you don't... I'm supposed to say that that's okay, but... is it really?

The Struggle to Find a Reason

I am constantly engaged in a war that demands everything I've got just in order to survive. A war against Depression. And I know that the only outcome will either be that I survive until I die, or that it kills me first. Often times it seems easier to just give up, to surrender. And so I search for reasons to not do so. I burn through them like a gas guzzler, and once a reason is used it might never work again; because this enemy is one that learns and adapts and fights back. I look under every stone, in every bush, down every rabbit hole, along each river, between each known location, and through any microscope, for a reason - for ANY reason - to persevere for a bit longer. Maybe it's that we'll be eating something I love for dinner tomorrow. Or I need to reach the next level in a video game. A friend wants to show me a movie they love. Maybe someone made me promise to at least try to take care of myself. Or I want to see one more full moon.

If you can find even ONE thing that you MUST do, it can save your life.

Or if you want to leave everything behind because of stress. Perhaps thinking about how, in the grand scheme of things whatever it is doesn't matter that much, might help. But be careful with that one, for while it may help with stress it can also make you feel as though YOU don't matter. And like the Doctor said:

But also, the dark side fights back. It doesn't want to survive. And so it will fight just as hard as the part that wants to live. Unless I can defeat it, or at least shut it up for a while. And so far... well... I haven't had much success.

In fact.

It's finding other ways to get me. Instead of telling me to die, it just quiets the voice that tells me to live. I don't sleep, or eat, or take care of myself properly. At all. It's the kind of thing where you stop watching where you're going, you don't ask people to hang out, you don't eat or drink enough, or sleep well, you stop dressing warmly when it's cold and vice versa, you lose track of the days and months even, you don't take your medication. It doesn't look like suicide and that's why it can hide until it has festered into an enormous beast that drags you around by the chain you tried to tie it with.

And that's what I'm fighting against. The monsters that were born, and grew, and trained.

But perhaps the hardest part...

Is that...

The monsters are ME

A Casual Romance

One of my teachers once said, that couples go through the "relationship" stage and then reach "best friend" stage. And I thought how great it would be to just skip the "relationship" part entirely.

Why can't I just fall in love with someone and they fall in love with me and we skip to the best part? I want to cuddle with them, play with their hair, and to fall asleep in each other's arms because we stayed up late talking about life, love, and the universe. I want to slow dance with them, and drink hot chocolate together, and watch the stars. I want to sit side by side and binge our favorite shows, I want to smile at the thought of them, and them to smile at the thought of me. I want to hold hands as we stroll through a park, and I want to have water gun fights, and make meals together, and tease each other. I want to see them nerd out over their favorite things, and to do the same in front of them, I want to see their eyes light up with passion over the phrasing of a sentence in a book, or the fan art they just found, I want to hold them as we deal with the death of fictional characters, and I want to see them grin with joy when their otp becomes canon. I want to play video games and board games and card games with them. I want to surprise them with chocolates, theatre tickets, and fuzzy socks.

Just to fall in love, without it being weird or awkward. To know how you feel about one another, without any guesswork or tiptoeing. Where you both can be who you are without judgement or fear. I want a love that's comfortable, that is never forced or fake, if they don't want a kiss or to cuddle or to watch something with me, I need them to know that they are free to say no. I want life to pass with the two of us side-by-side and us still happy together.

[found on pinterest]

also found on pinterest

I want my true love, to be like my best friend.

My Biggest Lie

I try to be an honest and truthful person. I really do. But there is one lie that always slips through.

"I'm doing well!"

"Things are great!"

"Life is good right now!"

"Better than ever!"

"I'm feeling good today!"

This is probably the deadliest lie I've told, but still it says it's self before I even think, it rearranges it's letters to seamlessly fit each conversation, and I never take it back... I just let the lie ride, because I'm more comfortable doing that than saying "No, actually, I'm not fine, it's just that I'd conditioned myself to say so whenever I was asked, so that no one would ever find out how bad things really were,"

Why is this lie so harmful?

Because it's telling yourself that how you're feeling doesn't really matter, that no one cares anyway, that it's not valid. It's a lie that tears you down, and keeps you locked inside yourself.

I'm an introverted person with a huge, vivid, and rampant, imagination, so I spend a lot of time in my head. And it's fun, it's what I had as a child in order to get through life, but sometimes now it is a nightmare that I can't escape, because of how I view myself, those views bleed through into my imaginary life because I hold all my pain and trouble inside and rarely let it see the light of other people's sight.

I have a terrible urge to shout my past and present hurts from the flat roof of the place that is practically my home, from the sloping roof of the place I live, from the top of the suspension bridge, from the highest rung of the ladder on the water-tower.

And yet. 

I still hide it. 

I still show everyone my happy side

And rarely reveal the darkness

Because that's what I've always done. Smile and wave, but never falter.

I really relate to Elsa from Disney's Frozen. She had a secret which she hid her whole life "Conceal, don't feel. Put on a show. Make one wrong move and everyone will know," but once her secret was out she felt free. 'Let it go, let it go, that perfect girl is gone," But then she again was afraid of herself, "Just stay away and you'll be safe from me," afraid that she would hurt people and get hurt again, she is now her own worst enemy "No escape from the storm inside of me," And I really connect to that.

And so there is this battle within myself, of hiding and declaring the truth. And for the moment, look which has won.

My Little Sister

Sometimes in life you discover something that takes a special place in your heart. I have found a great many things, but that doesn't make any of them less precious. Today I am talking about: hugging my little sister.

She and I were in Sweeney Todd together!

My little sister is very capable of being annoying - as younger siblings are - but so is most of the human race, so I don't really fault her for that. And on the other hand, she is generous, loving, gentle, and intelligent. She will greet you with big hugs, share her chocolates, miss you when you're gone, form her own opinions, pray for everyone to sleep well, and do her share of the housework. She is probably the most mature seven-year-old I know.

She loves animals, anime, games, and villains. And her family, especially our mom.

I don't have a lot of free time, and when I do I usually spend it alone in my room. So I have kinda missed seeing my little baby sister - and other siblings - growing up this year.

And the last couple days I got to cuddle with her, and it was wonderful. We sat side-by-side, she played her games and listened to her music, and I browsed pinterest and wrote a blog post. We didn't talk much, but it was still great bonding time.

Today she was 'teaching' me and one of our brothers, 'how to create a dance move'

I love her, and while I'd love for her to stay a little girl, I can't wait to see who she'll become.

An Inner Darkness

My brain has this function where I can see both sides of an argument/thought/idea/ and see the outcomes, for the most part. And while normally I think this would be a good thing, it also effects me when I'm depressed and trying to tell myself things to make me feel better. The problem is that I can have full hypothetical scenarios play out in my head, and while I can see both good and bad, the thing with depression is that the bad usually wins. Today for example: I was relaxing, everything was great, but then I got into a what-if. I was scrolling Pinterest and came across a post about how others are effected by the self-harm and suicide of their loved ones. The purpose of the post was to help us that are in the struggle, by giving us another reason to not self-harm, and to live. But for me, it didn't do that. Instead it spawned a hypothetical scene, where I attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge and was rescued and hospitalized; after messaging a friend to let them know that was I planning it. The me in that made-up situation decided it would be better for them to know - and have them spread the word - instead of me just going missing. While the hospital scenes played out, with people asking why, and trying to convince me to live, saying how much it would hurt everyone, how much I mean, that people need me, I fought back by saying that I don't mean that much, that everyone will be able to move on just fine, that everything would be better off without me, that they'll find someone else that's better than me.

Last week or so, I found an empty box in my room, I grabbed a pencil and wrote on the lid "A Box of Reasons." I then got some paper, and wrote down reasons to live. Most of them are the names of my friends. Some are shows that I'm watching. Some are sweet things that my friends have said. Some are goals of mine. And things I love. My plan was that anytime I am depressed, I can pull out some of those strips of paper and find the courage, find a reason to keep going. But my plan has a flaw. Because while it did give me joy and encouragement, it also gave me thoughts like: "they're wrong about you" "they'd be better off without you" "you won't amount to anything" "you're not good enough for that" "you don't work hard enough for you to actually love doing that" "you're wrong about that" "you can't even make it through a day, how are you going to have a life?"

I am my own worst saboteur. No one hurts me more than me. One reason I don't like being alone is that if I give my brain an inch it will destroy me.

I'm not writing this asking for sympathy. I'm asking for you to understand. Life isn't easy, even when you don't have a mental illness, and life with one can feel downright impossible. So please don't look down on us, or think we are just like you, don't call us liars, don't think that we are just begging for attention.

For some of us, that attention is all that's keeping us away from the edge. Don't assume that because someone smiles a lot and works hard and laughs loud, that they are fine.

Most people think that I am a laid back, happy-go-lucky, without a care in the world, sunshine rainbows and unicorns, kind of girl. But I'm not. This week I choreographed part of a modern dance piece, and showed it to my dance teacher and classmates. I turned off most of the lights, and had no music. It was a dark piece, inspired by the trauma and hardships I've gone through, and how it has left me terrified that it will all repeat again. In the piece I fell a lot (my knees still hurt), and my hair was down and in my face, and I punched the floor and flailed around, my glasses fell off, I ran around, and silently sobbed, and shook, and just when I seemed to be able to stand, I dropped to my knees again, put my head in my hands on the floor, and screamed. I think I made everyone uncomfortable. Because I showed them my inner darkness, when all they had known was a happy girl with a passion for theatre. After I performed that little piece of a dance, I was shaking, my anxiety habit of playing with my hands kicked in, I felt out of breath, and my voice trembled. I forced them all to see a dark and hurting person who was left screaming on the floor. And I forced myself to show it to them. And I felt relieved. After all, it's exhausting to wear a mask 24/7, of a persona so very different from how you truly feel.

Does this mean I'm never happy? No. I often feel happiness, especially when I'm with my friends, or performing in a show. Does this mean that I want to be coddled and have everyone constantly praising me? Hell No. I don't want special treatment, or for people to be extra gentle around me. In fact I want you to be brutally yourself, and speak to and around me with perfect candor. I just want you to be aware of my truth.

I have Depression. I have Anxiety. I have PTSD. They don't own me - though they sometimes take over. But they are a part of me, and now you know.