Nacense

Names are a strangely difficult thing for me. Naming kids, pets, essays, and characters has always been a struggle; I feel that a lot can be conveyed through something as simple as a name.

'Riley's Closet' is fitting enough to stick with. I won't insult your intelligence by claiming that Riley is my real name, but maybe I should explain why I'd decide to write about my closet, of all things.

Closets aren't particularly unique, or noticeable.  Lots of people have closets - some empty, some crowded, some disorganized, others structured. Some people's closets are wide open, yet others are shut to most everyone. Mine would fall under this latter description; I would describe mine as cluttered, solitary, and abnormal.

What's 'abnormal', of course, changes by perspective. In an attempt to dissemble political correctness and to express tolerance, some might claim that homosexuality isn't abnormal at all - yet if you take it from my perspective, it's considered extremely abnormal by a vast majority of people. And this might bring you to what I actually mean by 'closet'.

The perspective I'm writing this blog is from within my closet - which I've only come out of to three people.  Effectively, I'm still shut deep in the corner of it. Through this blog, maybe you'll acquire some appreciation for this perspective. And maybe you won't; like I said - everyone has a closet, and there are many more out there than mine that can offer their own points of view. Yet hopefully, some of you might be comforted by knowing that we're stuck in our closets together.

So, as a love-stricken seventeen year old, with a sexuality that I can't really define, perhaps I can give insight to a closeted teen's mind, or, especially, solace to those in a similar position. I can't promise that the journey I'll provide won't get occasionally lost on tangents, twisted in philosophical introspection, or even mired in hypocrisy and needlessly expiated rhetoric. I'll try to make my love for commas as unnoticeably annoying as possible - and the opposite for my extremely dry sense of humor.

Anyways, welcome to my 'closet'; I hope you leave with something beneficial.