Recently I was looking through some pictures and videos of me from last year. As a senior in high school, my life was completely different. I spent most of my time in the theater, and when I wasn't there I was at Dominos or doing improv. I worked hard, went to a party maybe once a month (if at all), and saved most of my money. My three best friends were girls, and to be honest, I didn't hang out with really anyone else. I had a lot of people I cared about, but those three were the only people I saw outside of school. I was in charge of almost everything I was involved in, and I was also riddled with anxiety.
Now, I'm very different. I spend a lot of time in theater, but in college it's been almost exclusively stage management. I stopped doing improv entirely. I shaved off half my hair, rarely go a day without eyeliner, and wear skinny jeans pretty much always. I do a lot of writing, and I started smoking. My nails are painted black, I don't care if people know what kind of music I listen to, and I do a lot academically because I actually care about the classes I'm taking. Most of them, anyway. The majority of my friends are guys, and I try to spend time with lots of people. Also, I don't have a job.
Things have changed a lot. That's normal, I'm in college now and people change when they go to college. I'm not surprised. I expected this. What I didn't expect was missing the person I used to be.
It's probably a romanticized version of myself that I miss. I was sad and had a lot of problems with my anxiety. I don't want to go back to that, especially considering how much progress I've made. But there were good times. I was as full of self hatred as any teenage girl could be, but now that I've learned to love myself, I see that I wasn't so bad back then either. I loved my friends, I loved all the things I did, and I led a whole life that I can never go back to. It only lives in my memory. This is something everyone has to go through, something people go through every day.
I've never had this before. My family moved to San Diego when I was three years old. I have maybe two memories from before we moved. And then we stayed there from preschool all the way through high school graduation. I'd never lived anywhere else before I came to Portland for college. That was also the first time I ever changed myself. I stayed pretty much the same from age 3 to 18. It was a simple, safe life. There was no need to change. But then I realized I wanted to be different, and I've become so much more comfortable with who I am. I feel like I know who I am now.
So there's my entire life behind me, and I have to say goodbye to that girl. She was me for so long, and I've never been faced with saying goodbye to a version of myself like this. I'm leaving her behind. Because I'm not her anymore and I never will be again.
I'm so happy with who I am now. But I have to figure out how to be happy with who I was, and still be able to say goodbye. I can't hold onto every part of my life, because I'm going to have to say goodbye plenty of times after this, but this is the first big one.
Here we go. Goodbye to the old me and the life she led. Hello to the person I've become, and the person I'm still becoming.
Glad to see you're doing well. Being an old fart of 25 I seem to have grown wiser and so I have some advice for you that has really helped me throughout the years. Learning to love yourself is the first part and it seems you have that down or you're well on your way. The second part is realizing that who you are today is a crazy amalgamation of your experiences; your struggles, your highest highs, your lowest lows, your misunderstandings, the hate, the love.. all of it is you. You can look back at it with regret and 'what ifs' or you can see it as the journey you've taken to become who you are today and use the lessons you've learned on that path to forge forward and create the life you want. I think you probably already understand this but sometimes having it in words helps. I've always admired how you're not afraid to be different, so keep doing you, Mackenzie.
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