Normal is as normal does

Throughout stressful and difficult times I've been finding my outlets in different places lately. At least, what I thought was different places.

As I was listening to some Rage this afternoon, I realized that as I grow as an adult finding my outlets and my means of stress relief, I am not finding it in different places.

In fact, I've been finding it in all the same places I used to find it in.

Before judgments.
Before insecurities.
Before worrying about what others would think of me.

I am finding it in my angry music.
I am finding it in my comforting foods, teas, socks, and books.
I am finding it in my own punk, my own self expression of hair and clothes and belief systems.
I am finding it in other realities, in make-believe places that I choose to believe to be real in my heart.
I am finding it in my truest nerd friendships, my writer and reader friends, my bloggers.
I am finding it in my seclusions in nature, my writing, my connections to creatures.

Somehow along the way I lost that.  Was "taught" and "molded" by society that angry music is bad, that fandoms and nerdcore is a crutch, that self-expression is weak, that choosing to have and embrace an identity won't change the fact that my identity is anxiety.

But that's wrong, and somehow along the way through college I began to think that way.
That it's just the way it is.
That you just have to power through it.
That you can't have these outlets and be okay.
That you must listen to The Man and go along with it, and hold it in, and not admit to weakness.

No, that's wrong.

Now it all boils down to doing exactly what I want. Saying no when I want to say no, listening to my Rage when I want to listen to my Rage, and escaping in whatever worlds I want to escape in.

I'm not delusional. I'm not irrational.

I'm normal ole me.