I have this broken doll at the bottom of my drawer. She remains hidden from the outside world. Her limbs are twisted, and her hair knotted. Her white legs are covered in stains. A once pristine porcelain doll is now busted and shattered. Although she is battered and bruised from the years, I keep her. A thing that was once so beautiful doesn’t deserve to be thrown away with the trash. If anything, she deserves her own glass enclosure, preserving her beauty that won’t let her decay further. But I’m afraid my friends that life doesn’t work that way. Time doesn’t work that way. Because with time comes aging and the loss of beauty. Sometimes we become broken or hideous to those around us. But only after we lose our beauty do we truly see the characters hiding underneath our exterior. Only once we shed these facades will we see our real strength. Because without that safety net, all we have is ourselves.
I Gaze
I gaze in the mirror at my reflection, and I don’t recognize the person I see anymore. My physical appearance looks the same, but somehow, I am different. Maybe it’s because I no longer see myself as the insecure girl I once was. Perhaps it’s because, over the course time, I have somehow managed to shed a part of myself that I never thought I could.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about why this is. I mean, how can a person change so much in such a short amount of time. A year ago, I moved to Denver, a much bigger city than the place in which I was raised. I had never lived outside of Idaho; I don’t blame you if you don’t know where that is. The point is, I was in the same place my entire life, and I felt stuck and bored. I was surrounded by negative people who I felt didn’t understand or support me. I always thought the problem was me; somehow, I was the person who needed to change, that I was the broken doll that needed repair.
Well, cue me moving away to a bigger city, and over a year, I discovered that the problem was never me. The real problem was I didn’t believe in myself and was too afraid to become my own person. Last year, I stopped writing, I stopped being true to my passions in life, and I stopped believing in my capabilities and talents.
I only moved here because I thought I was supposed to go to law school and become a successful attorney; not because I liked the state. But, even when I was doing the things I was “supposed” to be doing, I didn’t feel better. I still felt stuck, almost as if I were frozen in time. And I did the only thing I knew how. I finally listened to myself. I shut out all the outside voices and began to think about what I wanted for my life. I slowly began to write again. And most importantly, I quit law school, which was the best decision I ever made because I knew it wasn’t what I wanted. I believe that we can choose our paths, and I decided mine instead of doing what I was supposed to do.
This year I began living my life for me. And my decisions have reflected that. Everything I write, every picture I take, and the things I do are for me, not for everyone’s approval. And I have become a lot happier and self-assured.
And once I started thinking for myself, I learned that I didn’t need certain people in my life. I learned that all I have ever needed was myself. And now, when I look in the mirror, I see her, the person I’ve always dreamed of being, and I think that’s enough.
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