I have always looked back.
I reflect on people who are no longer here in physical form, but I know I carry them with me. The memories remind me of shadows that change with the direction of the light. Sometimes they are harsh and sometimes soft, and somehow I can still feel everything that I did then.
Things seemed so big. So impossible and possible at the same time.
Maybe I've been thinking about this more because I just had another birthday, and my 30th high school reunion is coming up. I won't be able to attend, but knowing it's happening has brought me back to that time in my life.
Those years feel so different now.
Information wasn't at our fingertips. What I knew about the world came from a mixture of parents, church, teachers, family and friends, along with magazines, books and MTV. Coming from a family that lived paycheck to paycheck, there were hand-me-downs and summers working in the heat, in the garden and on the farm. There was fishing in the Duck River, swimming in the Piney, listening to music and dancing in the dark of my room.
And I was quiet.
So quiet that my class prophecy was that I was most likely to never say a word.
Ugh. I was so misunderstood.
I took everything in around me. I observed because I didn't always know how to be. New people were difficult. I worried about saying the wrong thing. I masked. I wanted to be independent and figure out who I was, while at the same time feeling this pull to please everyone around me.
But when I look even further back, I realize being inward was always part of me.
My mom used to tell me about times when I was two or three years old and she couldn't find me. Eventually she would discover me in a closet somewhere, playing by myself and perfectly content.
As I got older, I spent a lot of time alone too. I listened to music, recorded things, played instruments and created my own little worlds. At one point I set up a pretend jewelry store and sold my goods from a wooden table to my mom in our living room.
I had two brothers and we played together, and I remember lighting up when I got to spend time with my cousins. They were familiar. But I was also perfectly capable of disappearing into whatever had captured my attention and entertaining myself.
Looking back now, I wonder how much of that little girl is still here.
Actually, I don't really have to wonder.
She's here.
I still spend a lot of time inside my own head. I observe. I make things. I follow ideas without always knowing where they are going. I paint, photograph, write and create things because something inside me tells me to.
The difference is that I'm becoming more comfortable with myself.
I'm producing what I want to create. I don't fear quite as much what so-and-so will think or what my family will think. Those thoughts still come, but I understand now how much they can hold me back.
Maybe that's one of the things I appreciate about getting older.
I don't necessarily feel like I'm becoming an entirely different person. In some ways, I feel like I'm finally giving myself permission to be the person who was there all along.
I want to honor the me of the past by being the me of today.
I am at peace with being who I am today. I don't aspire to be an image of myself that was projected onto me. For a long time, I think my quietness was mistaken for being subservient, obedient or agreeable. But those are not the same things.
I am still quiet. I am still inward. I still observe and take in so much of what is happening around me.
But I'm also not afraid to speak up when I feel I've been wronged. I'm more direct in my approach. Trauma changed me. It made me stronger and more determined, but it didn't take away the person who was already there.
Maybe I'm just more comfortable letting her be seen.
And as I get older, I find myself caring less about what so-and-so might think, or what my family might think. Some of that is probably growth. Some of it might just be my body changing chemically and allowing me to not give a damn.
Thanks, hormones.
I can laugh at myself. I can look back at the different versions of myself and understand them in ways I couldn't at the time.
And I can find peace in being who I am today.
