I am an INCREDIBLE actress. When it suits me.

But oh how I fall. I have been working for months now with a therapist and self evaluation to try and get past these last seemingly insurmountable hurdles. The irony being all that I have changed about who I am and my life over the last 3 years. You can change or fix just about anything with surgery these days. You can change your entire wardrobe. You can change careers. You can change your hair color, cut and style. You can change jobs and latitudes. You can change your mood with a little help from a friend. And yes you can even change your sex apparently. We are a world fast becoming a planet of designer humans.

But there are two things you cannot change. Your past and your mind. I hear the sound of squealing breaks of disagreement on that last one. I say that out of experience really. So hear me out. We can change the way we feel about a great many things. Education and enlightenment play a big role there. We can OVERCOME, contain or control a great many things in our heads. Just having an open mind and a willingness to change are pivotal in ones ability to modify your thoughts and feelings.

I am struggling. Struggling to change that last bit of me I hate so much. I am afraid to live and free myself of all those fears that hold me back year after year. Those fears that pull me back in to self destructive patterns. The fear that keeps me from living all the dreams I carry with me to protect me from the darkest places of my mind. I feel like a small child that just wants someone to hold my hand. Just long enough to take me across that bridge of fear.

But there is no hand. And all the confidence I can muster seems short lived. I am afraid of people. I meet people and never see or hear from them again or look them in the eyes and feel I am not liked for some reason. Am I too tall, too ugly, too pretty, too weird? I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. This I have felt all my life. I still feel this way.

See all that self defeating stuff. It leads to being lonely. It leads to self doubt. It is that thing I have never been able to change about my mind. The part of my mind I cannot change despite my best efforts. And I don’t know why or how.

If only I could get past the fears in my mind that keep me from truly being the person I am in my own dreams.

I consider myself an extremely lucky person. Especially considering I am an open and out lesbian in a world that seems so hell bent on not allowing people to live an d be happy. I have a great family who has been there every step of the way since my formal self outing. I have some good frineds and many acquaintances. I have a great job with a really good company. I and I live in a nice little quiet nook in San Francisco.

What more could I want?

A lot more actually. I may be a forty-something goddess in control of her life. But I am also still a teenager at heart more often than I admit. I am fickle and want every freaking thing now. Change happens and I want it over and done with. I sen my eye or my heart on something and I want it started or done yesterday. I know this is not how life works. I cannot keep up the light speed change of pace I often expect in my life.

And this is where the battle begins.

Me fighting myself. Nichole vs. Nikki. It’s tantamount to insanity. The seemingly endless skirmishes with my own sense of self and desire class often sending me off on wildly divergent paths. The unfortunate victim in this constant flux is me. The wounds are often intense depression and even overwhelming anxiety.

Over the past month I have been stuck in a perpetual black hole of depression and questioning everything in my life. I can usually pull myself out of this funk within a few days or even a week tops. Not this time. It was so profound I upped my therapy sessions. Slept way too much and stayed up way too late thinking.

Thinking is my enemy. I have written several poems about my struggle. “My Enemy” being the most recent. I often write as a result of these “moments” of struggle. If I don’t write for more than a week it is not a good sign. It means I am losing the battle. Of all things I have struggled with in my life, depression has been the cruelest of foes. And the one battle where I have never really come out the victor.Though I keep trying.

Giving up is giving in. I have vowed too never give up. I have come to far and accomplished to much to just hand in the keys to my life and let something or someone else drive. Last week just before the Pride festivities I suddenly and inexplicably found myself emerging from the month long battle over depression. This time I really can’t put my finger on how I did it. I am just glad that I did. So here I am back to writing. Back to living. And back to enjoying the feeling of sunshine on my face.