Reply to Who Am I? (Aged 20)

Written six months after dropping out of college.

What am I?  That sounds like a silly question.  I am what I am, and that’s supposedly that.  But it grates not knowing.  I know a me that is entirely flippant, and luxuriates in solemnity among bad puns, a me that haunts the morbid lower regions of the soul, and a me that shines through sometimes in between.  Even if the shining middle is only the mediated extremity or merging of one or both of the two others, that still two me’s in one skin.  That’s way too many for my comfort.
I know that I have created a persona, maintained and used that persona for the past several years.  I created a solid student, a funny gal, a boisterous individual among strangers, so that I could wend my way through the world.  This persona is the reason, I believe, that my parents, my friends, my teachers, and the rest of my family and community did not anticipate my crash.  Also, I think that my maintenance of the persona after I first admitted my problem in high school has been detrimental:  I knew that there was something wrong underneath the shell, but I didn’t expose that wrongness to examination.  
Not only did the shell not function after I acknowledged a problem, looking back, I don’t know if it was that good of an idea to start off with.  It was created to allow me to “wend my way through the world”, but what the heck does that mean?  What goal is there in wending?  Where am I headed?  What dreams did I pursue from within that shell, and under its protection?  The answer that I’ve come up with is truly eloquent: bupkiss, zippo, zilch, nadanihilnonenonenone.  The shell, I guess, became just as much a guide as a protector: to silently wend my way, I had to respond to external stimuli, enhance the shell in order to continue it, work for the shell rather than the dream I might have held.
I know that the shell exists now, that it is an element of my own creation rather than a naturally inherent part of me.  Thus, I know that if I wish, I can step beyond it and toward my own goals.  I think that even now I have a goal worth stepping around the shell entire for:  I want to start my own homeless shelter.  I want to create a place to help provide the basics to humanity, so that humanity can then reach the heights of its own determination.  Or maybe, not to step away from the shell entirely, but use it for protection but reclaim its management.  (I know that this will not make the shell as strong, impenetrable, and will leave me open to hurt and disappointment.  But right now, I think that that is better than continuing as I have.)
I don’t think that I will try to remove the memory of the shell from others’ conception of me.  I won’t tell that it was a construct, at least not upon general conversation.  That need not be corrected to the general public, just to myself.  I see issues enough in changing my conception of myself, changing patterns of behavior towards others (created under the shell), and regaining my independence from the thoughts of others as hard enough without trying to exonerate myself from the past few years.  Besides, it would be a really weird conversation to tell people that the Louise they had known was only a construction of the real Louise, designed to meld with the normal world.  That would be awkward(lies, asking when the mothership was bound back would be the fall out, I bet).  The change itself shall be the object, the goal moving forward, and I shall concern myself with amending the course of my future rather than others’ tracing of the past.
I am tempted to cut all association with all who knew me as the shell-girl.  With others, there would be no preconceived notions of how I should act, nor questions as to what had gotten into me.  I would have the responsibility (among a new crowd) to cut a new path entirely rather than changing my own course now.  But I don’t want to do that.  I don’t want to give up entirely the friends and family I have.  I’ve cut relationships with friends from former schools and bands, holding myself to the cutting of a path different than that before.  That was not the best choice of my life.  I miss those relationships, if not the people themselves.  Plus, I know that I lack the self-will to change on my own among strangers, for it is among strangers that the shell is most useful.  I need the challenge of breaking from well-conceived conceptions, and the support of loving people.  I hope that they will still love me, as I will be more truly myself, which I hope is what they loved in the first place.  I want to stay with the people and the society I know through my changes for the comfort of their love and their comments to my change as my reward, or rather confirmation that what I consider changes are really changes.  Though my instinct is to run away, or to retreat to the shell, I must do neither:  I need be strong, and change myself honestly, thoroughly, and under scrutiny.