The ghosts of my life, past.

I don't know if you've ever found yourself to be in the position of *that kid* that finds themselves uncerimoniously uprooted from their lives one day, through whatever circumstance. Through whatever crisis that excised itself through your days, you constantly look back at the *before*. Before x, y, z happened, I was ______. I was miserable, or happy, or knew where I belonged, or knew I would get through, or at least had an anchor that held me to the mooring of the tiny vessel that is wholly me. And then there is the x, y, z that bisects the you that you know. Maybe it's a death, or a birth, or a moving away, or a ... no, that's all there really is, isn't there? The death of one thing, or the birth of another, or a moving away in another direction entirely. Whatever the reason, you *do* look back.

I looked back today. I gave myself permission to look back and reach out to some people that meant something to me. Some, I couldn't find, not yet, but some were there at the ready, and it was a day of "where have you been," and "do you remember so and so, and where ARE they," and "this is where I'm at in my life and it's so STRANGE that you and I are still on the same page after all of this time," and most of all, just a sense of belonging to something that I didn't think I had. When my x, y, z happened, I was told I wasn't allowed to have a past anymore; I was reborn, prodded to assume a new name, cut off from everything except the future. I was a 13 year old girl with a room full of ghosts to keep me company until I found a room full of live bodies to start over with. Today I gave myself permission to find my ghosts and let them breathe life back into themselves, into me, into my past. My ghosts remembered me without much urging; remembered me like tracing names carved into a tree, and I will never forget what that has felt like. I am grateful and surprised and relieved. I meant something, too. I am a swirl on the fingerprint of youth.

My therapist said that I have to mother myself, and at first I knew immediately what she meant, but also had no idea how to do it. Mother myself. Well, I don't have time for that. I'm an adult, with adult responsibilites and expectations, and who the hell has time to wait through their childhood hour and do it all over again? But I'm finding ways. I'm returning things that belonged to me all along, like permission to belong to something bigger than myself. Friendship; such a simple thing. My past, which I'm owed all along; it's mine; I earned it. I lived through the smiles and the jokes and the tears and the hands being held. They are mine, as much as the lines of my face that have grown from those experiences. I am a weed that grows in the crack of pavement, begging for life - insisting on it.

I do matter, because I am. Me.