Identity

Identity is a big thing. It's how you get a job, credit, how people see you, and how you see yourself. The word is loaded with so much emotion: contentment, happiness, frustration, and so on depending on where you are in life or who help up their own mirror to your face.

My identity was secure; despite the statistics of home schooled military brats. Eventually I learned that your outward appearance is such a huge part of one's identity. More than my little introverted brain ever considered. I didn't learn this till I cut my hip length hair to my shoulders and went to school only to have a great deal of people not recognize me.
My dad had always said to never slap anyone in the face because 'it's an attack on the person not just the body'.

My identity got challenged when moving back to the states, and then nearly shattered after getting married. Growing up as I had my place in the family was a HUGE part of how I defined who I was. Now that had all changed. I was living with some one else, with different (for lack of a better word) duties and concerns. I even had a different name!

In then end, though modified, I'm still Ashes.
I'm still a dork. I still read way more than is healthy. I watch cartoons and get too loud when I get excited or over joyed. Part of me wishes I could be badass but the other half of me is resigned to the fact that I'm 'cute'. I have the same scars. The same fears still stalk me (I'm working on beating them into submission). To this day I confuse the crap out of people with my clothing, yet some how pull it off.
I'm still a flower bud, changing colors as she blooms in the garden of life with my sisters, brothers, and the thorns that pop up around us.

What makes you 'you'? What do you see when you look at yourself?