All The Versions of Herself

A single tear made its way down her cheek, melting into her skin, as the sun warmed the sky behind her eyes. Amelia had forgotten what it was like to feel. She had perhaps even forgotten herself altogether. A knock on the door brought her back to reality. Well, what she thought was reality anyway.

“Almost done in here, hon? We still got the whole attic to clear out before closing next week,”

There’s really no seamless way to bounce back from being tossed into a life-altering, soul-touching moment, but she did her best.

“Yeah,” Amelia said with a quick sniffle, wiping her cheek, “Just packing up this last box. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Her father was already making his way hurriedly down the hall to finish clearing out the boxes stacked by the stairs, and she was glad. She didn’t want to have to explain why her thirty-year-old self was sat crying in the closet of her childhood bedroom, holding an old ragged stuffed dog she had almost entirely forgotten about.

Amelia, still feeling delirious, looked down into the pale, beaded eyes of the dog, really seeing it for the first time in over twenty years. The light gray fur was matted down from ages of cuddling, and the floppy ears had hardly any fur left on them at all. There was a rattle in the belly, which she just remembered almost caused her to cut the beloved pup open at the curious age of six when she went through a phase of needing to know how everything was put together. Thankfully, her grandmother talked her out of it with a quick response of “How about we wait until you’re older, and if you still want to dissect it then, you can.” She was just praying not to have a grandchild with an incessant need to murder stuffed animals.

Reality was quickly coming back to Amelia in a cool wave of discomfort, yet she could still feel the memories of her childhood lingering in her stomach. She hadn’t felt this connected to her past in, well, ever maybe. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she was sure she wanted more. 

Just moments ago, Amelia was throwing her old junk that hadn’t been touched in years into boxes to send off to either a storage unit, her parent’s new house, or the trash. Almost as quickly as she realized she was picking up her old stuffed pup, she was transported back in time. With a jolt, she was seven again, and the world around her slowed down. She was just outside this house, feeling the summer sun warm her skin and the fresh air fill her lungs. An unexplained lightness radiated from her chest - the complete unawareness of the ‘real’ world to come. The ultimate feeling of freedom. Her little sister was chasing her around the yard, trying to grasp the game of ‘tag’. Laughter from the two girls echoed off the house as they fell to the ground and rolled through the grass together. No worries of the world were present, no bitter feelings from heartbreak, no stress over health or bills, just two kids with full hearts and the world at their fingertips. Amelia realized she was living in her first memory of true happiness with her little sister. This memory had apparently been stashed away and hidden in her brain, assuming never to be found again. It hit her especially hard considering she hadn’t heard much from her sister in months, and they had spent the last few years growing apart. Chalking it up to ‘that’s just how getting older goes’, however detached that mindset may be, she wasn’t expecting to feel so much from reliving such a seemingly simple memory. However, just as quickly as she was dropped into that summer afternoon, she was thrust back into present day reality. 

After sitting with understandably overwhelming feelings of what just happened, and how impossibly real it all felt, Amelia, almost subconsciously, picked up her phone and called her sister.

“I thought Mom told you I won’t be able to come help today? Sorry, the kids have so much going on and I just don’t have time to make it out and I -”

“No, no it’s fine,” Amelia took a deep exhale, “I just - I was going through our old stuff and it got me thinking. Or feeling, I guess. I just want to let you know I’m glad you’re my sister. Life gets away from us sometimes, but I don’t want you to forget that I’m here for you.”

“Wow, Ms. Sentimental today are we?” laughed her sister, but not without a hint of concern.

“Ha! I know, I know,” Amelia was trying to fit child-like feelings into an adult-centered world. “But seriously. I love you.” 

Amelia was trying to think of the last time she said those words out loud to anyone. She felt it, of course, but life has a way of pulling out the innocent, unattached feelings and replacing them with walls, and barriers meant to guard your heart and keep you from feeling life. It feels like a necessary part of growth, to learn when to be vulnerable and when to detach, but what gets forgotten is how that can leave you feeling lost and searching for meaning. Searching for yourself.

There was a moment of pause over the phone. A genuine connection through silence. 

A familiar connection those two girls running around in the sun all those years ago knew so well.

“I love you too, Amelia. Really. Thanks for calling.”

These last few minutes sitting in her old bedroom, holding a stuffed animal she was gifted the day she was born, had been more heartfelt and present than the last ten years of Amelia’s life. The mere memory of what it felt like to be open, loved, and simply happy had been buried by life itself over the years. 

Amelia hung up the phone, feeling lighter, but confused. Did a toy just show her a memory of her childhood? Not possible. But now she had a choice to make: move forward with logic or with heart. Logic would tell a person, “You’re seeing things and acting hysterically. Snap out of it and throw that tattered old toy away. Then make an appointment to see a psychiatrist because clearly there’s an issue of someone needing medicated.” This is perhaps the reasonable path, but something was pulling her to move forward with heart. Almost like her younger self was in control now, and didn’t want to be forgotten. Didn’t want happiness to be forgotten. Feeling open and daring, Amelia held the pup to her chest and closed her eyes, waiting to be pulled in closer to her own heart. 

This memory took place in the very spot she was sitting in now. Her bedroom closet happened to be the only roomy one in the house, so it doubled as both Amelia’s wardrobe and as the family storage unit. She kept a chest in here that held all of her scrapbooks and sketchbooks, and old childhood memorabilia, including her once-beloved stuffed pup, and her parents had all their old boxes and photo albums stacked to the ceiling. It was as close to a quiet getaway as a kid could come who couldn’t actually get away. 

She was fifteen. Amelia sensed the energy immediately, and knew this memory did not hold the same sunshine and happiness as the last did. There were angry voices coming from down the hall, muffled through walls and clothes, but she knew in an instant they were from her parents. There were countless incidents from these teen years that would have resulted in crushing emotional battles between the three, but this one had solidified the depression. Like the final nail in the coffin. Her heart was racing from having just finished another soul-draining fight with her family. Heat was radiating from her chest, but she was breathing deeply to slow down time and keep the tears that were welling up behind her eyes from pouring out. Loneliness filled the space. Longing for connection to her own soul took over, but nothing but a pit in her stomach remained. 

Amelia was recalling this memory almost real-time as she was reliving it, remembering all the times she felt detached from life itself. How does a person go from free and full of wonder, to a prisoner of their own mind? And how did she not realize that her light began to dull so early in life? She would have done anything back then to speak to her future self, to have some type of confirmation that things were going to be okay. Little did her younger self know, her older self was a hot mess and further from finding answers than she’d like to admit. 

In a rush of darkness, Amelia opened her eyes to come back to the present moment. The tears she held in all those years ago came pouring out, and with them the weight of loneliness they carried. She may not have been able to console her younger self back then, but she was with her now, and she felt even more connected to herself than she has in years.

Amelia gazed down at the pup, who had been by her side for the first several years of her life. Who had made a home in that closet through her teen years, and who had been all but forgotten about until today. She let go of any logic and allowed herself to feel a sense of gratitude towards it, for it had been a connection to versions of herself she had previously pushed aside in an attempt to make room for a newer, better version. 

But as she sat there in her childhood space, with the weight of her formative years still burning inside her, she realized she had been fighting an impossible battle. She realized she needed to embrace all versions of herself in order to move forward. In order to be content and find happiness. Her seven-year-old self told her it’s okay to let go and feel love, and her fifteen-year-old self told her to never let the connection to her own soul fade away. There was no moving forward, there was no internal growth, without bringing along your full self and all the versions that may entail. 

No one expects life-altering revelations to come to you at 10am on a Tuesday while packing away the last bits of what you once considered junk from your childhood bedroom, but that’s exactly what happened for Amelia. Which actually worked out well because if it were a planned intervention between Amelia and her old stuffed animal, she would not have shown up.

The air smelled sweeter, and Amelia’s chest felt lighter. She felt solace in reliving these long forgotten moments of her past during this particularly soul-searching time in her life. She had been stuck in a cycle of searching for meaning, a cycle that has claimed countless victims. The French philosopher, Albert Camus, said it best, “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” It’s easy to get lost in life, to lose your way searching for what life is supposed to be, but we can always find our way back to ourselves if we’re willing. And now, Amelia was willing.

With a deep breath, giving life back into her lungs, Amelia picked herself up from the creaky wooden floorboards and felt the presence of her childhood in this space one last time. She grabbed the box of her old belongings to add to the truck outside, but pulled out her pup to keep for herself. Maybe it was magic, maybe she was a little more delirious these days than she thought, but it was a reminder nonetheless that her younger self had never really faded away. That she still lived in her heart and would be with her on this journey throughout life. She began to understand that if there’s anyone worth growing with, finding meaning in, and living for, it’s all the many versions of herself.