And now to change the tone of this blog entirely...

I have one really big insecurity. I have many other insecurities too of course, but one main one. And that is my general child-like...ness.

 I have always been perceived as very young, much younger than I am. I am short, and very thin, always have been. I still haven't reached the triple digits on the scale. I could still purchase children's clothes if I wanted to. People seem to think that's somehow flattering, or a good thing, "You'll be glad for this when you're older!" or "I wish I was as thin as you, how is that a bad thing?" But you see, I am a little older now, at least since the beginning of receiving those comments, and I am not glad for that. There is nothing flattering about being called child-like. It implies that I'm somehow unable to be sexually attractive, unless under the gaze of some type of pedophile. There is nothing flattering about a mother buying her college age daughter Disney underwear, or children's toys, or not being trusted with the most simplest of tasks because I might mess them up.

I struggle frequently with feelings of uselessness. I am neither strong nor skilled. I lack much of the common sense that most people seem to have in cooking, cleaning, and mechanical skills. I take at least twice as much time to complete a task compared to a normal person. I have anxiety, contamination fears and other annoying tic-like behaviors that interrupt normal function. I am accident prone and spacey. My mind is frequently plagued with distracting thoughts. The world can be extremely confusing to me, but I want to learn how to be successful in it.

I also have another big problem. I am still, in the conventionally accepted sense, a virgin. I have never had PIV sex. A culmination of many factors brewed an intense fear in my subconscious that causes me to become hysterical in such situations. It's not like I have never seen a penis or anything, I have done it all, but that. However, the assumption that I must a nun or something seems to frequently come up, like I'm some sex-hating man-eater or something trying to kill my boyfriend with blueballs. And that really just feeds into my feelings of childlike-ness. I feel entirely stripped of my ability to be sexual, because I can't get to the home-run so to speak, that I'm stuck in the teenage mindset of just fooling around. I can only supply the appetizer but never the main course...

One of the last confrontations I had with my boyfriend before we broke up involved a letter he wrote that said that living with me was like living with a child. And that, confirmed all the fears I had of his perception of me. No matter what truth or validity may have been in that statement, it hurt me so irreparably, that even though we stayed together for another 2 months after that, I knew that we were done. Even if for some reason, we can reconcile our differences, if he apologized for that remark, I don't know if I could ever get past that statement.

Once upon a time I built my life with a person I loved, and because I couldn't have sex with them, it was somehow okay to strip my of my mature personhood, my ability to survive on my own, and my sexuality. And that is not okay, and that is not what makes me a child.

I am an adult because I am an adult. I am not a child because I am not a child. And that's that.