I miss the girl who…
I miss the girl who laughed so loud you could hear it through closed doors. The girl who still believed blowing out candles could change her life — like maybe one year, the wish would stick. I think I still feel all the same emotions she did. Only now, the bad ones are bigger. The better ones? Smaller. Fainter. Easier to miss.
She wore oversized t-shirts and let her long hair cover what she couldn’t. She played every song too loud in the car — not because she loved the music, but because silence felt like a dare. She loved vodka. And wine. Like they were lifelines. She got sober at 22, so she didn’t have many friends as an adult — but she spent her teens at every kind of party, with every kind of person. She thought jealousy was love. She thought someone making her feel small meant she mattered.
She did so many things I cringe about now. Hookups she couldn’t remember. Stories she only pieced together weeks later — someone else’s version of her night. She cried in the shower. I think she liked the drama of it, maybe. Or maybe it was the only place she didn’t have to hide the sound. I don’t know if she ever felt safe. She just kept losing pieces of herself, calling it growing up.
Only her mirror knew how long she’d stand there, picking herself apart, counting flaws like sins. Only her mirror saw what she was really trying to fix.
I don’t want to be her again. But god, sometimes I miss how easy it was to disappear.
