do you know who you are?

based on lights up by harry styles

this song, the beginning of an era. it was the start of something new, something revolutionary- FINE LINE. it's a song that brings be back home even though its lyrics revolve around finding yourself and not knowing. it provides me a sense of security regardless, makes me feel safe, makes me feel like i belong somewhere.

it made me sit and question myself, do i really know who i am? who do i want to be? what do i enjoy? who is it that i love? how do i become someone i will choose no matter the situation? how do i become someone i love?

the answer to all that at that moment was just i don't know. when this song came out i was not in a very good place, it had been a few months and i had some major shifts in my life. i had changed schools, had to make new friends who didn’t know who i was and the worst part of it all was that i didn’t either.

i did not know myself at all, because i spend all these years with people who “knew” me but i never taking the time to know myself. i pride myself on understanding and knowing people, being good at reading them, being good at helping others but being out there on my own was difficult and i felt strangely helpless with myself.

so i took some time and went into this whole soul searching phase where i looked for things, i found things that i loved and wanted to do no matter what people said. so why did i not do this all before? i was scared. i think i was scared of who i would become, change the idea of it just terrified me a lot.

being put in a new place gave me the opportunity to be authentically myself. now i am not saying my previous environment stopped me from being myself, i had and have some of the greatest best friends in this whole world who i would not trade for anything and i am very thankful for them, but being in a completely new place gave me this feel, "hey they don't know me i can do whatever i want and be whoever i want". this song gave me that push, it told me that change happens, for better or worse and it's real and it hurts but it gets better.

i always had trouble in accepting myself in various aspects of my life, and the lyrics “Shine, step into the light, Shine, so bright sometimes, Shine, I'm not ever going back” those made me realise there’s nothing truer than being authentic to myself. it made me say that i can be who i am and be comfortable doing so. i sometimes still need to look back at who i was to see where i’ve come but there’s no going back, because now no matter what i will be able to accept myself.

Harry Styles is one of the most authentic artists out there, and no i'm not saying this because i'm hopelessly in love with him but because he grew from "i'm scared to express myself because of what people will think of me" to "i know i can be who i want to be because i know i have people who will accept me regardless and that is enough." he gave me a home and showed me that everything you ever need is within yourself, if you just look hard enough and i hope that whatever you are going through you still choose to always be there for yourself and find your voice because you deserve it, no matter, what find your voice.