A line from a poem I wrote in ninth grade came to me today, out of nowhere. I dug out my old journal and flipped through the pages, trying to find it. I couldn’t remember anything other than that one phrase: I alone in a roomful of voices. And I remember that I cried when I wrote it. I looked through pages upon pages of words that overflowed with heartache. It brought back the memory of how painful it was back then to just wake up every day and know I had to go on. My life was hollow. I was broken into a thousand pieces and so damn alone.

Since loneliness was the only feeling I could clearly articulate during those years when I was supposed to be creating the definition of myself, the conclusions I ended up drawing were debilitating. In order to understand why my life was so cold and dark, the only explanation I could come up with was that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. That I was so strange or broken or defective that I literally repelled people without realizing what I was doing. It was the only thing that made sense. For years, that was my definition of myself. And I lived here in this world without feeling real… a shadow of a person. Transparent.

Oh, how that breaks my heart.

I wish that I could reach back in time and send love to that girl who needed it so desperately. I wish I could reach forward ten years from now and borrow strength from the woman I will become. I wish I could see my life through the eyes of my ninety year old self and bask in the understanding she has of it all.

I was never able to find that poem. But it’s clear to me that I am slowly healing, and healing has given me solidity. It’s an amazing thing to walk down the street and feel like people are actually seeing me, instead of just looking right through me. I feel like I almost belong here now. And I know that someday I will wake up and I will finally feel whole.

More self portraits here.