Sometimes I wonder if it’s just me, or if everyone feels like a goddamn parody of themselves. Last night, for example. Another work mixer, another forced smile. This firm really leans into the "diversity" thing, which is great, I guess, except it often feels like I’m the token… whatever they need me to be at any given moment. So there I am, making small talk about Q3 projections, when some junior associate – bless her naive little heart – asks if I’m "back from my trip." I just stared at her. Trip? What trip? Then it clicked. She’d heard me talking to a client earlier, my accent apparently getting a little… thicker, I suppose, when I’m trying to close a deal. It’s a trick I picked up during my time in the service, a chameleon move to blend in, to disarm. But now, civilian life, it just makes me sound like I’m putting on an act. Which, you know, I AM. But it’s not for fun. It’s survival. And this woman, bless her, thought I’d just returned from… somewhere exotic. Because, of course. My face, my hair, they don't exactly scream "raised on a military base in the middle of nowhere by two white people who thought the height of culture was a casserole." The irony, right? I just laughed, a little too loud probably. Said something about having "just gotten back to reality," which she took to mean I was being profound. God, the absurdity. It’s like being a perpetual undercover agent, always on assignment, but the assignment is just… existing. Trying to figure out where the hell I actually belong. My adoptive parents, they did their best, truly. Good people. But there’s a difference between raising a kid and understanding what it’s like to *be* that kid, looking nothing like anyone in your immediate family. The constant questions, the polite curiosity, the assumption that you’re always a visitor. And now? This whole biological roots thing. My birth mother, turns out, still lives in the old country. My civilian therapist (a concept I still struggle with, honestly – just give me a clear objective, damn it!) thinks I need to "explore that side of myself." Explore what? The side that makes people assume I’m foreign even when I’m talking about property tax rates? The side that feels like a stranger in my own skin, even when I'm speaking the language I've spoken my entire life? It's like having two separate uniforms, and neither one quite fits. So I stood there, cocktail in hand, smiling at this junior associate who thought I’d been on some grand adventure, and all I could think was, *you have no goddamn idea*. No idea what it’s like to feel like you’re constantly explaining yourself, constantly adjusting your dialect, your mannerisms, just to be perceived as… normal. Anyone else out there feel like they’re living a double life they didn't even sign up for? Like you’re just waiting for someone to call your bluff? Because I’m tired. And honestly, a little pissed off that I still don’t know who the hell I am when I'm not playing a part.