The longer I looked at my instagram, it became less of a museum, and more of a mausoleum. A distraught young girl haunting the hallways.
Here lies the girl who cried in high school when she got an A minus. There is the daughter in tears from fighting with her mom but smiling for the family picture. Here is the girl wearing traditional clothes to celebrate a culture that never felt like home. There is the sister who couldn’t come out of her room for days. Here is the niece on the family trip where everyone bombards her with questions about her career. There is the friend who doesn’t have any. Here is the woman cosplaying at being a woman.
When we grow out of the children we once were, we are told that it’s effervescent, emboldening, empowering. No one tells you about loss. No one tells you about guilt. No one tells you about heartache. I am abandoning a version of myself that at one time, served me well and kept me safe. There was once a girl who stayed up late every night to study because she thought she was a failure without her grades. There was a girl who thought loving people meant having no boundaries and letting others do as they please. There was a girl who huddled to her journals late at night, running back to her only solace. There was a girl who was small, and afraid. Can I dress this way? Can I think these things? At the time, she decided she couldn’t. She’d settle. Survive safely.
No one tells you about loss. No one tells you about guilt. No one tells you about heartache. I am abandoning a version of myself that at one time, served me well and kept me safe.
That young girl loved me. But she also made me ill. So terribly ill that even now, I cannot lift a mug without shaking hands. That I cannot say hello without saying sorry. That I can’t dress the way I want without squeezing my eyes shut and hoping no one looks at me. That I cannot breathe without feeling guilty for taking up space. So I have to let her go.
But it isn’t easy. The guilt gnaws at me from the inside out. She’d meant me no harm. She was surviving. It’s like a physical ache inside of me, phantom pain in my shoulders and chest as hers begins to fade. It feels like I’m abandoning a child, which in a way, I am. I’d written letters to myself for years, reaching back into the past to hold her hand. Now, I grab at nothing, my hand falling through her transparent one. A ghost. Only, I can still hear her crying.
Death of self, I’d said. Even when the crying haunts me, I want to give her a proper burial. I want to let her rest. I want to set her free.
So I begin to take new pictures.
Here, me posing in the mirror with the haircut you always wanted. There is mom still loving you and making you food after you dropped so many classes you went on academic probation. Here you are with your two sisters who really care about you. There you are with your best friend on your dream trip to New York City. Here you are wearing a suit and getting piercings you like. There you are holding your childhood stuffed animals, yes, even your first teddy bear, I know you love him, no, I didn’t forget. Here you are listening to music in your own apartment, writing a piece that you like. Yes, you intern for the school magazine now. Here you are, writing words, and here people are, caring - kindly, boldly, lovingly.
What do you think? I ask her gently. Does this seem okay?
She is quiet for a moment, sitting cross-legged and transparent on my bed, hugging her bear. Our bear.
It’ll do, she says, and smiles, but I know better. She’s always been too agreeable. She can tell my eyes prod her for more because I want her to be honest. For the first time, and the last.
She opens her mouth, struggles for a moment, closes it. Tries again.
Could you...tell me you love me?
I swallow.
I love you, I say. I do.
And she laughs. She laughs and laughs and laughs, and it’s so odd, because all I’ve been hearing is crying for years, and I can’t tell what she’s laughing at.
Not more than I do, she says fondly, and she’s gone before I can blink, scrambling to grab invisible sleeves, a hand, anything.
I bite my lip and I try not to cry, a thickness in my throat. Because it’s true. She was always more proud of me than I was of her. She’d always supported me, and I’d tried to erase her. I had wanted to leave the girl who had been with me all along. There she is, writing in her journal. Here she is taking me to therapy. There she is writing the paper for me at 4am. Here she is loving the people around her. There she is making her best friend laugh. I set the photos side by side, all in a timeline. I am not losing myself, I realize. I am growing into myself.
The teddy bear flops onto the bed, winking up at me. He appears to be smiling, privy to a secret only he seems to know that I am yet to discover. In the background, tinkling laughter. The mausoleum becomes a museum again. I take a deep breath and roll my shoulders, stretch out my legs. Come morning, when the sun rises, the doors will be open again. There is the girl I once was. Here is the girl I am, adjusting slowly, shedding skin. Treating phantom aches.
And there is the girl I will be: loving, bold, kind. Effervescent, emboldened, empowered. Gentle and free.
