how to make friends (with yourself)
the girl in the mirror may be a piece of work, but she’s who i’ve got.
as a child, i had no self-consciousness. i was in complete union with my true self. and that girl? she was bossy mcbossy pants. i liked corralling other kids to do my bidding. whether i was being the benevolent leader of a fantasy society, or creating a dance routine for the school talent show, i had no qualms about living out my own unique vision. i was protective over my younger siblings but also a complete tyrant. i once instituted a rule that if either of them failed to finish their dessert before i finished mine, i was entitled to a big sister tax. yes i ate their desserts. years later at the start of my creative journey i would meet a man named happy who told me “to make it as a woman in this world you need to be shameless and fearless.”
i knew a girl like that once.
after childhood came the dark ages. suddenly your clothes don’t fit right, and girls are kinda mean and being super enthusiastic and earnest about things you love is not the vibe. in these years i battled my body, my mind, my heart. these years were marred by constant dieting, suicidal thoughts, and obsessive crushes. being a teenage girl was my vietnam. i do not jest. there is violence, enacted against you, in a pithy flavour you’re not quite old enough to recognise. it hides in plain sight, only to be unpacked and understood years later. the strange feeling we judged as our own insecurity? it was intuition all along. that first up and down relationship we watched our best friend go through? abusive with a capital A. that teacher that was fun to flirt with? inappropriate at best, perverted most likely. even if you were one of the lucky few who escaped a direct hit, the myths abounded. and those stories were used to demean, belittle and control. you see what happens to girls like that? no one gets out completely unscathed. the worst of my wounds have healed but the scars linger on in my fear of talking too much and the very real marks on my arms.
and so it is that we arrive, misshapen but determined, into our 20s. soon i will be coming up for air into the “lates” and from what i’ve observed so far about this stage its very much like an oasis where the water is poisoned, but everyone pretends its not. “is something wrong with me or is it always like this?” sometimes after the rain, i go for a walk and i see so many little snails on the sidewalk. i don’t understand what they are doing. they don’t seem to be moving. they have come out of the lush greenery to park themselves in the middle of dull grey concrete. a great deal of them get crushed underfoot. and still they emerge time and time again. why? what is it like for them to see their little snail comrades meet a grisly end only to risk the same fate the next rainfall? i think this is what God must feel about people in their 20s…. “why?” i can’t tell you God, i can’t tell you why i chose to hitchhike to the club with that strange man clearly doing crack in his parked car. i honestly can’t. sometimes i feel more invincible when i’m not taking care of myself. only earnest effort exposes my true ineptness at this thing called living.
how was it i became friends with this person? a therapist asked me that once. i cut myself for 6 years straight and then one day i just stopped and i hadn’t for over 5 years. she asked me, how? i didn’t have an answer for her. i do feel bad for those that experience pain as a dull ache, because for those of us that burn, it’s easier to change. it easier to befriend yourself if the only other alternative is to die. so, i guess i became my own friend simply because i had to. maybe to make friends with yourself is not to love. its to see. you can’t be afraid to get a good look. it’s very hard not to love a person once you know their story.
yours,
akinyi