I AM HELLKAT, HEAR ME ROAR!

My nickname is Hellkat.

I didn't earn it for being particularly feisty, or spunky, or cool. I actually got it from an old coworker. We had recently met for the first time and after he hit on me and then promptly asserted that I was a lesbian, he gave me the title of "Hellkat" without apparent reason. It only stuck as a nickname because my friends thought the story was ridiculous and hilarious (which it was shall forever continue to be, Amen).

Hellkat didn't used to mean anything really, but it has become a defining factor of who I am.

As it usually is with adolescence, I was a very guarded person most of my life. I've never been especially quiet or shy, just shielded. Of course you never want to embarrass yourself or feel stupid when you're young; I prevented this by not sharing who I was, or what I felt, or what I really thought from everyone around me all of the time. This generally resulted in a lot of loneliness and fear - not so fun.

But something flipped on when my friends started calling me Hellkat; my crazy, silly, new nickname sort of freed me.

Hellkat became my superhero mask, and anytime I felt unconfident, or nervous, or shy, I could put it on and be candid without the fear of shame or embarrassment. It wasn't a charade though. I never changed who I was when I got into "Hellkat mode", I just let out what normally got shoved back inside. And after I put on the Hellkat mask so many times, it stopped feeling so much like a mask, and started feeling like what was underneath all along.

It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Now I'm Hellkat all of the time. I can quickly find the humor in all of my embarrassing stuff. I can live without the fear that someone might not like me as I am. I can just be myself and be happy with that...usually (let's all be real here, I'm a 22-year old, so take this overt self-confidence bit with a grain of salt).

I'm pretty sure that most people refer to this type of revelation as one's "journey of self-discovery", or "growing up", or maybe as a "QUIRKY, WINNING COMING-OF-AGE TALE...GREAT...FOUR STARS". To me, it's been more of a metamorphosis. In the same way that the caterpillar has always truly been the butterfly, I've always been Hellkat - it just took some time for me to figure it out.