I met my younger self last night. She visited me in a dream.
Her pale tights were big on her. Bunched around the knees, held up by a baby blue leotard. The fuzzy velour caught the light as she leapt clumsily around the stage.
Out of step with the other girls. One move behind. Not quite the same, not fully fitting in. A whirlpool in the sea of synchronicity.
She stole glances at the girl in front, who fairy-floated through the choreography like it was etched into her DNA.
Despite her unharmonious bumbling, not a smile lit up the stage like hers. Eyes crinkled with a beam so bright that every unlost tooth could be seen from the back of the hall.
With heavy footsteps, she bounded from the makeshift stage into the warmth of her Mother’s outstretched arms. Even through the dream I smelt the perfume my Mother wore. Cosy, elegant scent of hotel lobbies and faint vanilla. Eyes softened with tears as I watched their embrace. Remember the feeling of safety in my mother’s arms. The resilience that pumped through her like a life force. Chest tightened, an anguish that I never thanked her for all she did. A lifetime of efforts, largely unnoticed, mostly uncelebrated.
The scene changed.
Youthful voices reverberated off classroom walls.
Tipped back chairs, wooden smell of pencil shavings, sound of rulers slapping, snapping, then wrapping around wrists.
Another version of me. Slightly older, maybe twelve years on her now. She sat up tall. Tried to talk, but her voice was drowned out. Again. Then again. Neck tensed with a yearning to be heard. To be taken seriously.
The first taste of dismissal. It prickled through her oesophagus, like heartburn, as she swallowed it down. Gave up with a shrug. Refocused instead on organising her pens by colour. Small things she could control.
Beginning of a gradual moulding. A shrinking that would shape the rest of her life.
Blurring.
She was older again. A teenager now. Panic at her youth. Pining to be older.
Had a caution about her, wore a coat of aloofness to mask her insecurity. Arms wrapped, like a shield, around her body. Sleeves pulled down over her wrists. Chipped nail polish clenched around withered yarn.
She rushed through the streets that were narrowed by shadows. Met sinister eyes with a polite smile. Pretended not to notice the darkness that stalked her.
She danced no more but still performed.
A different kind of performance. A different kind of audience.
Doting eyes of parents replaced by a faceless crowd of bad intentions.
Only a figure in a dream. No real danger to her.
Still, I, asleep safe in my bed, feel gripped by panic. It squeezes my head, pressure building around my ears till I awaken with a metallic taste in my mouth.
It takes me a while to come back to the present. Gather the fragments of myself, scattered through my subconscious. Look at my reflection. At the past selves smiling to me from the mirror. Feel it twirl through me, a tornado of relief. This birthday is significant.
65.
I made it.
On the balcony, the morning sun shines with a blinding brightness, but the heat doesn’t reach my face. Likens the footpath to a shimmering pond as it reflects off the icy layer. Rays sparkle in the crunchy frost blanketing the grass.
A quiet morning, the hush sits like a presence, firmly settled over the street. A weight to it. Creates an almost eerie sensation.
Like, I am the only soul alive. Awake. Reborn.
Feel myself slipping, slowly, back into a dream-state.
To another version of me.
She was not quite grown, yet grown enough. Needed nothing and no one. There was a power within her. An invincible determination that seemed to vibrate the air with its potency.
Marched towards a future she believed she could control. Hope warmed the back of her throat, like a trickle of golden honey.
Did not feel like an act in those days. It was real. All of it. The belief in what she was trying to create. The certainty that her vision would take shape, sharpen slowly into reality.
But things changed.
It was just one voice at first. Bellowing hysterical hatred into a microphone.
But it grew. Rapidly. Furiously.
Logic drowned out by a choir of chaos. Drivel cooked up by idle egos.
She ignored them initially. But their words stuck in the air like a plague. She began to believe when they told her what she was.
A faceless entity became the Director of her story.
Performed harder. Allowed parts of herself to erode as she became confined by the parameters of conformity.
Performed beautifully. Hours and efforts spent remoulding herself.
Perfecting the pristine smile. Plastered it tighter and tighter over her face.
Body tucked and pinned, a garment of flesh shape-shifting through trends.
Panic at her age, pining to be younger.
All because she felt warmed by the shrouded spotlight of their gaze.
Validated by tepid applause. Ignored the sinister thoughts that curtained their eyes.
Now that I am here, I feel crushed by the weight of wasted years.
My glasses fog from the steam rising from the mug cupped between my palms. My cheeks flush, tingling slightly as cold meets warm.
Like a yawn spreading through the neighbourhood, the bustling sounds of Sunday morning fill the silence.
The children playing next door, high-pitched screams, the thud of a football passed around. Crunching of gravel and snippets of conversations float up from the footpath. Car doors slam, the rumble of an engine, a woosh as they pass, quietening once they turn the corner, disappearing into their day.
I feel the need to drink in every moment. To sit in the presence of it all. Because for so long, I was absent from my own life.
A movable prop.
Detached. Despondent. Responding to cues barked at me from a darkened abyss. Rushed through the motions, from one ticked-off box to the next. Hypnotised by the lies that breathed value into the performance. It promised so much.
Promised to save you from ending up a lonely woman. A sad woman. A walking woman.
I used to see the Walking Women when I was younger. In every neighbourhood I lived.
Always one, always walking, always alone. Eyes either vacant or furiously sharp.
I wondered about them. Pitied them. Judged them, as well. They did not perform and so, were doomed to an unfulfilled life.
Felt secure. I would be spared such a fate. I was doing it right. I would have it all.
And then, the curtain fell. Thundered down, smothering me in velvety waves.
All at once, nothing made sense.
The once clear picture of the world turned into a pixelated kaleidoscope of confusion.
I was out of sync. Could not fulfill the singular purpose of my existence.
My performance became a farce. Whispers followed me. It was the loud voices, sure, but others, too. They declared me broken. Believed myself to be a failure because I knew I was perceived as one.
Prisoner to my own body. I arrived in my thirties, a walking woman.
Spent months helplessly wandering. Vacant eyes looking for my child. Who did not exist. Would not exist. Could not.
The brisk breeze cuts through the air as I step onto the footpath. My skull clenches as the cold shoots up my nose. Wrap my knitted scarf tighter over my chin, nuzzling into its warmth.
My walk now is so very different. Strides are calm. Filled with purpose. Head is high, eyes are sharp. Legs step with gentle assuredness. Don’t walk to escape. Don’t walk to seek. Walk to celebrate. My past selves behind me like shadows.
To my garden plot. A route so well-travelled, the imprints of my footsteps are carved into the concrete.
Settle onto the bench for a moment when I arrive.
Allow the aroma of flora to dizzy me. A blissful taste. The sun streams like a spotlight onto the sticky pollen that streaks down flower stems.
Petals dance in the breeze. It is so alive here. So vibrating with vitality, it feels like watching a city through an airplane window.
Found this place the day I paused.
Paused long enough to recognise that the story I was telling was not mine.
Not the script I wanted to write.
Not a life I wanted to live.
This realisation gave way to an implosion within me. Tasted true freedom for the first time. Like Eve, with the forbidden fruit, I savored every bite. Devoured it. Allowed the juices to drip down my chin. Nothing ladylike about it. About any of it.
The garden was my rebellion.
My own creation.
Became everything they told me not to be.
Hardened. Untamed. Stopped performing. Stopped smiling. Stopped being delicate. Strove for expansion, no longer tried to shrink. Grew and grew till I could not be confined.
The loneliness they promised never came. Only freedom. Only community. Walking Women. The happiest I have ever known.
Look, now, at the first flower I planted. Ageing, withering.
Has seen the seasons turn and turn back again.
Has weathered the destruction of storms.
Been flooded by showers of tears.
Yet she prevails.
No screaming voices or angry forces dictate her power.
She does.
Around her, the others.
The bud, barely sprouting petals.
The fledgling that turns her face, seeking the sun.
The one shooting up, awkwardly, still unsure of how to grow.
The one almost broken, leaves withered. But buds of hope burgeon along her stem.
Growl from the gathering clouds.
After a few warning drops, they split the sky with their downpour.
Turn my gaze upwards. Allow the years to wash off me.
Feel the smile on my face. The same one that lit up the stage all those years ago.
Feel better now. Myself again.
Thank you for reading 💖
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