My dad passed away when I was in seventh grade.  Yeah I miss him sometimes, but I'm no emotional wreck or anything. 

Without getting religious, death happens.  And then what? Am I supposed to need your help NOW?  Because you sure weren't there when he was alive and healthy so I have no emotional attachment to you.  Believe it or not, what you say won't help me at all. 

Let's see...when I found out that my dad died, I was just about to play super smash brothers for the first time at my grandmother's house.  My mom's dad drove up and we were told the news.  Everyone else was pretty sad, and I was too for a while.  Then I played SSB for awhile. 

My family did not raise me to be emotionally unstable or an attention hog.  I mean, yes, I feel a little bad on the inside, but it's nothing to base your whole life around. Show some backbone, make the person who died raising you proud by not crumbling so easily.  Sometimes I get annoyed watching fellow grievers go out of their way to make sure that everyone knows that their parent passed while others go through the same pain without the theatrics. 

So now it's quite a few years later and I met some new people at college.  They said a joke about my dad and I brushed it off.  Then the person who said it remembered that my dad had passed said "sorry."  What for?  People make jokes all the time, being dead or alive won't stop the jokes from coming.

It didn't bother me much when my dad passed.  It was an expected outcome, so there shouldn't have been any reason to feel that bad about him.  I moved onn from that within a week or two(because of the funeral and all that jazz), so plaease don't stereotype me into the "victim" category.  There are plenty of other people just deserving of that title so leave me out of it. 

It's hard to say.  I'm having a bit of an identity crisis...I thought that I was a pious person who went to church all the time, but that isn't me.  I thought that I was a musician for a few years and while I still do play an instrument, it isn't me.  I thought that I was a gamer, but my resolution in that was shaken as well.  I thought I was a bookworm, but now I'm reading less each day. 

I thought that I was shy, but I end up saying what I want to say regardless of how awkward I feel.  I thought I was underweight, but I ended up screwing up the BMI(body mass index). I thought that I was a meteorologist, but there is so much that I don't know.  I thought that I was black for a while, but what is that mean really? 

For each identity that I come up with for myself, I end up being the odd one out.  I always feel like I don't actually belong with myself.  For example, I play the alto saxophone for marching band, and while I enjoy it there is no rush or drive to continue in it.  Or when I ask black people at my college why they chose an interracial school over an HBCU(Historically Black College and University).  They said that there was never any doubt, that they were not going to an HBCU.  And they said it with such conviction, like they knew from the start what they were going to do with their lives.  Especially when I can't even communicate with a lot of people because of the "slang barrier." 

I honestly have no idea who I am at this point.  If I always fail at being part of a group of people, then maybe I don't need to be with anyone.  I'll just take life at my own pace since everyone else seems to have left me behind. 

I always hated when folks would say, "Just be yourself."  What IS self?  Should I be an individual and keep my own beliefs and ideals? Or does that make me stubborn?  I'm not good at following because I always end up thinking too hard about it, and I can't lead because everyone's already following someone else.  So i'll just stay in this spot.  I won't have to be myself, a follower, a leader, a musician, a black college student, a meteorologist or anyone else. 

Who am I?.........I'm nothing at all.