Self

As time and life and experience go on, you, yourself may find that you didn’t. It is as if these things do touch you, they do move you, but as you stand still inside yourself, as the tide, wind and air flow past you, swirling into a dizzying array of colors, sounds, and emotions- you find that you have held on to a part of yourself that no longer is.

This is a disarmingly confused moment. You look at the ghost of a girl you were, this shadow, you see her smile, you see her thoughts, you REMEMBER and you KNOW her words… yet you are not this girl. Not anymore. You were her, parts of you are influenced by her, but she is not you anymore. This is a ghost.

I have seen this moment in others. Sometimes this moment may take hours, sometime days, in rare cases, this moment can take years. Understandably, frantic resuscitation attempts may take place. This person you were, who you may have defined yourself by for so long, is gone and facing your new familiar self in the mirror is a devastating moment.

I see her, the girl I was. I was the gypsy, the writer, the artist, the young girl and the world was frightening and new. At 115 pounds, I had long dirty blond hair, I loved to walk, I lived on coffee, cigarettes, and breakfast food and I spent a lot of time alone. I spent hours and hours and hours painting, thinking and in the Blue Mountains.

Who am I now? I am losing hope of ever being 115 pounds again, my hair is ash blond from living in the high western mountains and my emotions are somehow rawer than they were then. I am rarely alone. I clean house, make dinner and do laundry in a washer, not in a tub. I still love to walk. Sometimes I paint but I almost never see the emotions in my paint that I used to. The golden ball inside me hums quietly. Once I held it carefully, guardedly and now I forget that it is there on some days.

I am happier, healthier but I think I am less kind and less aware and less forgiving. I think I was less selfish. I have to let go of my ghost, turn around and let go. Only then can I remember, re-try, re-do, and change the person I am within.