i am making myself unrecognizable

in spirit and in form

summer is almost over. it’s been nearly a year since everything began. everything being savannah, everything being what is now my entire world. i used to pretend that nothing existed before i moved here. like my life started the day i dragged my mattress up the stairs of our shitty old apartment. things that happened before savannah were clouded memories, tales to tell in games of we’re not really strangers and after late night tarot readings. formative, but not necessarily tangible. the only thing that ever felt real was what was happening in the moment. eventually, though, the present becomes the past, and the past always fades. now i look back and even those early memories of savannah are glossed over, faces blurred and sounds of voices lost to time.

the other day my friend and i were talking about pivotal moments—car crash nights that led to daydream months that led to inexorable heartbreak. it was almost unbelievable, the way things happened to me. i’ve never believed in fate like that, but it’s impossible not to when everything falls perfectly into place. maybe now i’m more jaded, with it all in the rearview. i’d still like to believe it happened for a reason.

i think a lot about how different things could’ve been. if i hadn’t gone out that night, if i hadn’t been running in the rain to get somewhere i wasn’t even sure would matter. maybe it would’ve been easier, but i don’t think i’d want it to be. it all hurt and i was grateful for the pain. it only made me softer, and maybe a better writer. i learned to channel everything i felt into something beautiful, pages that i could hold in my hand and feel proud of. i wanted to see proof of the love i had felt. that even when it hurt, the hurt was still born out of love. i was proud to have something to miss.

after a while, i think pride can’t help but become shame. i’m not sure if that’s a universal experience, but it feels true to some degree. there’s an urge to escape it all, to ignore what once was. but it’s not as easy to leave everything behind when you’re not actually leaving. so i dyed my hair blonder and i started going out more and i learned to love in different ways. i destroyed the person that had felt the pain i was trying so hard to outrun. i pretended nothing phased me, that nothing in my past mattered anymore. they’re right—ignorance is bliss. but it can only last so long.

suddenly you look up from the ground and realize that it has all changed in ways you never realized. you don’t walk the same route anymore and you live in a house built in the 1800s. friends and lovers have come and gone, and some still say hi to you when you see them in the park. others avert their gaze. they don’t know where you live now and maybe that’s a good thing. you might’ve been in love but you didn’t realize until it didn’t matter anymore. your hair is darker and your face is thinner and you don’t let people decide for you when you don’t want to. you learn that ignoring the past doesn’t make you more of the person you want to be—it actually does the opposite.

you can’t really leave yourself behind. i have carried myself around, shoved down and ignored. i’ve been many versions of the same person and i am not proud of all of them. even six months ago, even last week. i wince at the recollection of how i used to be held, or rather let myself be held. not by any one person, or not by anyone at all. i don’t think it’s human nature to look back fondly, at least not at everything. but i recognize that even when it’s not a fond memory, it’s still one i carry.

i am making myself unrecognizable to you, in spirit and in form. not in the way that i tried to before. i don’t want to pretend anymore. i’d like to be proud, maybe in a real way this time. i want to embrace some multitude of the self, some idea that i have been many different people and will be many different people again. i can’t pretend that my experiences haven’t shaped me. like the way i live and the way i love is some byproduct of chance. it’s not. i want to be whole, in some way that i haven’t before.

the summer is ending and i’m thinking about what a year can do. i still think of it all but not in the way i used to. it’s defining, but not singularly. i am full of life and love and experiences and mistakes. i’m ready to be proud of that.