My identity has always been stuck in-between the ends of different spectrums. I am bisexual, femme, and mixed race. The way I present myself as a queer multiracial woman has never really been accepted in the communities I'm part of. Never queer enough, never light enough, never dark enough, never masculine enough to fit the stereotype of women who love women.
It can be really hard to find your place in the world when you're a medley of identities, and this makes it even harder to learn to love yourself because you always feel like you're not enough, or not good enough, or not right enough. There is also little to no representation of people like me and evolving in such a world can be truly damaging, especially when you're young.
But as I grew up, I started to realise that if the world was going to let those identities define me as a person, then I might as well be the one to write those definitions. I have since stopped seeing myself as a mix of things but as my own person. I am not a mix of races, I am my own ethnicity.
I am not between straight and gay, I am bisexual. I am not too feminine and not masculine enough, I am exactly the right representation of my sexuality. These identities are my own to interpret, and I'm the one who gets to keep shaping them up. No one else does.