Let me show you

All these social media profiles shout out at me to "DESCRIBE YOURSELF. WHO ARE YOU" but then cut me off because I have many words to describe myself than they allow.

How can 190 characters describe over 8,760 days of life?

How can five sentences be enough to talk about more than just the superficial things such as my education in a classroom? What about my education through life? My education through living and breathing and just straight being?

Keep shouting, social media -- but I can't fit myself into a tiny box. I don't WANT to fit myself into a tiny box.

I'm not JUST the 50 words I can fit into one of these profile descriptions. I am much more, much much more than can be constrained by space limits dictated by someone unknown entity across the country.

I need more space.

I deserve more space.

I am not going to trim off the "real" parts of me to only show the socially acceptable bits in a profile. I am much more than my job description, my education, my hometown, my current location. I have ideas, dreams, likes, dislikes, wishes, goals, wants, needs, desires, whatever.

If I'm going to tell you who I am, I don't want to shy away from the muddier bits, the harder times that have helped shape me. I don't just want to tell you the pre-packaged acceptable version of myself.

If I'm going to show you who I am, I want to show you with words that sting and bring forward more of an emotion than "She's just another millennial, lost among the pixels".

If you want to know who I am, social media platforms that you are, give me the space to actually be me, not the space to be who you want me to be.