Note: I posted this late in 2013 and, rereading it, my heart was moved to post it again since the subject seems to have grown new life. Most prefer to stay out of the spotlight, some make a flamboyant point of staying in it. My heart goes out to the quietly confused.
This was one of those rare people that enter my life for only minutes and fill me with a multitude of questions. I couldn't help but smile, as I watched her go, wondering which of us was more confused. She was pretty but her eyes betrayed the confusion, and her manner the sadness she carried, an emotional burden for one so young. There was nothing flamboyant about her and she went out of her way not to let on what she was, even to keeping her voice at not much more than a whisper. Where I saw her as attractive, I couldn't help but think she wondered why she just couldn't be seen as something other than "pretty, but..." Why people couldn't just accept her so she could be free to feel, well... pretty? Then again, I'm not who I was before I joined the Air Force; I have grown, in better ways than I could have imagined.
To read more of my thoughts on this topic, please follow this link: Quietly Confused