Way to keep up with a New Year’s tradition. Death Cab for Cutie has always been the start of my new year. And I never had any resolutions.

Today I have one, though: I will stop pretending to be somebody I’m not. The past week I have been back home with my parents, and I realised I will be back home with my parents every Christmas until there is no longer a ‘back home with my parents’. Which makes this one week seem all the more significant. I have met up with old friends and they spoke about their business related majors and it never occured to them I might have something interesting to add to the conversation. I ran into all kinds of people I keep running into in Maastricht, people that I graduated with in 2007, people that I graduated with in 2009, heaps and heaps of unintresting people who keep running in the same old circles.

They still think I would lash out at them when they say something slightly awkward about gay people. They still let their eyes drift towards me for that three seconds it takes to see if I’m okay with what they’re saying, even though I have long stopped requesting approval of anyone when it comes to my sexuality. If they say something that offends me, I will retort, and I know from experience they will apologize more often than necessary – a habit I have only picked up in the past year or so.

I went to a gay bar on the fourth day of the university introductory week with J the English major and a bunch of people I didn’t know and no longer know the names of. I did so without checking with my group leaders if it was okay if I skipped the official program for the night, and the day after I told a couple girls I had gone to a gay bar. Although I still never actually utter the sentence ‘so I’m bisexual, just lettin’ you know’ (or any of the variations on that) all that often, they could’ve asked me then and I would’ve answered with the truth. They just didn’t ask. It was, ‘I went to a gay bar’, and then it was, ‘oh, okay’.

Everything that happened after that are things my friends in Maastricht have never inquired to know. Some of the things (Gay Games Cologne, Amsterdam Canal Parade, ILGA-Europe conference) they have actively ignored to the point that when I say I was working so of course I could answer my e-mail all day long, because I *need* a computer with functioning internet to get anything done, I don’t think they really understand what I mean.

When this post goes up I would have been in Amsterdam, partying with M the Meds major, E the People and Bussiness Management major, and D the Pedagogy major. Then at the last moment, everyone cancelled and it ended with me on the top stairs, long pauses in our phone conversation, and M changing it to partying in Maastricht. The last time I partied in Maastricht with just her, I got all the creepy men and she didn’t think about helping me out because all the boys who study Economics and wear suits on a night out were so much more intresting. (Sorry, but give me a sexually confused smoker who’s flunking completely in uni over that any time. At least he was honest.) I hardly slept that night, instead sweating and sliding in and out of nightmares, which also happened a few times when we were on holiday last summer and I can’t talk to her about it.

I was lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, my feet dangling downwards by the time she said ‘then I’ll speak to you later’ before abruptly hanging up. (After which J the Danish major invited me to him and his girlfriend’s, but that’s all the way in The Hague.) An hour later, she asked per Facebook, ‘Would you still drop off my usb stick?’. My parents live fifteen kilometers away from anything remotely intresting, including her. I will not spend an hour in public transport just to drop off a usb stick.

I’m done with it. Done with Maastricht, with not being in the conversation. With trying to keep up friendships with people who don’t understand me for who I am – and this has in fact very little to do with the ‘awkward gay comments’ issue. They don’t know how my personality has evolved since all of us graduated. We’ll probably survive, M and me, E and me, D and me. But I’m not going to be bound by them any longer.

I’m done with pretending to be someone I’m not. That’s my resolution.

Good morning, everybody. Make it all worth it. Make it all so very worth it. Never stop standing on your toes to reach those top shelves.

love,

“Gwen”.

–

‘Cause even at your worst
You are fucking incredible
It comes honest
So return to yourself
Even if you’re already there
‘Cause no matter where you go
Or how hard you try
Or what you do
The only person you ever gonna get to be
And I know it
Thank God
Is-

- Buddy Wakefield, The Information Man

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