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The Versions of Me That Won’t Let Go
It’s wild to think I’m still the same person that I was when I was 14 or 10 or five.
Except now, I’m alone.
I don’t live with my family, or wake up in a twin bed with my big sister in the twin bed next to me. I don’t need my mom and dad to drive me around anymore, and most car rides are spent quietly, by myself.
I feel a pit in my stomach when I think about the time I spent living with my family—how it just felt like that’s how things would be for my whole life. But now, I’m on my own.
Sometimes it makes me miss it all, even the fighting or yelling, although I can feel the lump in my throat when I start to think about it and my eyes start to water.
I guess I don’t miss it all. Some of it I hardly remember.
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to remember—to pull those dark times to the surface. Why should I? They seem to leave me feeling disoriented.
I feel those younger versions of myself pulling at the version of me now, calling out for me to stay—don’t go. I feel a tension between my innocence and my survival.
But I must. I don’t know why, but I must go.
There are so many different versions of me, and they all have to die for me to really live. The problem is not that I can’t let go of the past, but rather the past won’t let go of me.
There is a teenage girl, getting stoned and skipping school with her friends, who begs me to stay. There’s a 22-year-old backpacking and traveling the world telling me to stick around. An 18-year-old falling in love for the first time.
An 11-year-old wearing no shoes, playing outside in the summertime, catching fireflies with her friends. She really wants me to stay. She sits in the grass and cries—don’t go.
There is a 24-year-old stuck in a relationship, who begs me to stay and go all at the same time. A 16-year-old working at a smoothie shop with her best friends. A 19-year-old dancing on a truck on the side of the highway in California, watching the sunset on the beach.
There is a 25-year-old partying, drinking, and dancing—having the time of her life. And a five-year-old, giggling, getting tossed up so high in the air by her dad in the pool, or pushed on the swing by her mom.
There’s a 26-year-old getting sober and tasting a new way of life for the first time telling me to stay right there. A 10-year-old out to dinner with her parents and siblings—laughing, crying, fighting, yelling.
There are a million versions of me, and they all won’t let me go.
They’re all still alive, pulling me to the earth like gentle, loving shackles around my feet—and they only want the best for me.
I beg them to let me go, so I can be free of this place—to move on to whatever comes next. But they refuse.
They won’t let me go until I honor them.
Until I hear them.
Until I listen to their stories and remember what it feels like.
To feel everything for the first time.
~
author: Jenna Susson
Image: Author's own
Editor: Nicole Cameron
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