One two three four, to the five

Hello everyone :)

[I'm trusting you with loving me
Very very carefully]

I'm officially obsessed with Big Time Rush. Completely and totally in love with them. More so with James Maslow!!! He is the love. <3

Well, I'm in love with him on a superficial level. I never thought I might start to really like (love maybe) one of my closest friends. But I can't help it. He did my deb with me - which in Australian tradition is the night a girl transforms into a woman.

He was there with me. He discovered a part of me neither of us knew existed. I should probably put some deb photos up, come to think of it. I might do it tomorrow. The point is, I feel like he understands me. Like I don't have to be anybody except myself around him. Around him I'm allowed to love orange tictacs and talk about resident evil and go completely geek on him. I'm allowed to tell him how I feel.

[Now I'm about to give you my heart
So remember this one thing
I've never been in love before
So you gotta go easy on me]

He's given me the courage to stand up. To tell people what I really think. To tell Terri that she needs to get over herself and accept that things don't always go the way you plan, in fact they never do. To tell my friends that I'm not gonna stand by and watch Giulianna drown in her own low self-esteem and Terri's insults.

To think that it would ever come to this - that it would come to the point at which I don't care what Erin, Elenn, Kelsey, Emily, Grace, and countless others think of me - is astounding. I never thought I would get here.

The nice thing is that I know who I am, finally. I'm my father's daughter. He taught me respect, to help people in need of help whether it inconvieniences you or not, who taught me that without fear there is no such thing as courage.

[He gave me a road to chose
He gave me freedom
And I hope that someday
I will walk in his shoes]

So here I am. My name is Ayla Shannon Gray, and my life's ambition is to help people who need it. I like to sing and my motto in life is "when in doubt, dance it out". I'm in love with the guy who took me to the deb and gave me away to my father for the Pride of Evon. I like everyone else breathes slowly in the dark when the sun goes down, and like everyone else it saps my strength to face my demons.

So, whoever's reading - I'm tired of trying to be someone I'm not. I'm tired of being a simpering hair-twirling bimbo to match Erin's bitchiness. I'm tired of trying to be deep and meaningful around Kelsey. I'm tired of being spastic and insane and uncontrollable around Elenn. I'm tired of being shallow and insecure around Nathan.

I want to be the person I like - I want to be able to geek out all the time with Enyar over Stargate and the X-Files. I want to be able to laugh and smile and flick rubber bands at Riz. I want to laugh and do things I'm not supposed to at work with Niknak. And for him I want to be myself, this over-excitable seventeen-year-old who loves Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 4 to death and spends a lot of her time smiling.

[Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she's loved]

I know I'm good. And I know that people who accept me are good. Erin's not going to like the change, she's not gonna like I can finally do my own thing. Kelsey probably won't like my new cross necklace. Elenn won't like the new me flat-out. Nathan won't like that I actually have a brain.

But Riz will like me. So will Enyar and Niknak. And I'm thinkin' Brendan's gonna like that now I'm a real person. A real girl with hopes and dreams. Not one who's annoying.

[You'll be the first to know
When I find what I'm lookin' for
I wanna love with the sun on my face
Ride a train to nowhere anyplace
Don't know where I'm going
Anywhere, I don't care]

That was tiring.

-a solitary blue.