I feel like I’m coming of age again, and finding myself.

It’s like I’ve learned that people like me for exactly who I am.

These are two things I’ve said in the last week, on separate occasions. I’m not sure what it is that’s come over me in the last few weeks, but I feel like me again. Like the most me I’ve felt in a really long time. I didn’t even know that I hadn’t been feeling like me.

Once upon a time, I actually was That Loud Girl. But when people meet me In Real Life that know me mostly online, they’re kinda like “really?”

some background, maybe?

I didn’t know it, but my spirit was broken when I graduated college – when I completed one particularly grueling class. I became a hermit. I mean, I got a job, I moved in with my boyfriend, etc. and Life Was Great and all. But I went inward. I became an introvert that I never really knew. I felt like I had to be on and psych myself up to be around people.

it. was. exhausting.

And then I fell into this club. It took some time, but then we actually became a club [as in it was more than just me and one other person]. And then I started getting to know people and making friends and being completely and 100 percent me all of the time. With people around. And I run my mouth and I swear too much and I have a little [okay, a lot] of crazy in my eye and I probably end up scaring a lot of people the first time I meet them.

But them they keep coming back. They join the club. They want to be around me. Let me pause.

This is starting to sound like a cry for compliments. It’s not. I swear.

that’s right. at age 26, i have learned that people honest-to-god love me for exactly who i am.

It’s not that I wasn’t being myself. I just wasn’t being around people. I figured that the people who need to love me already do. I’ve got everyone I need.

But on Thursday night, with not one sip of alcohol in my blood, I was seriously drunk on love. I was around a crapload of people, and I didn’t need to be on. I was just there. Being me. Having a great freaking time.

So, I’m a little bit crazy, and a little bit loud. I love to laugh, often for no reason at all. I’m a writer, but I often have no idea why. I may not know who I am entirely, but I love it anyway.*

Self-love, bitches. What of it?

*And thank you to the ladies who helped me figure it out this week.