When I'm small

You are what you are

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Of all my insecurities, perhaps the worst one, and the most silent, stems from my fear of being an existing person.

So much of my life has been made up of invisibility. Smallness. I wished to be big, but every time I stretched my hands out, there was always something in the way. I felt myself brace for the hard-hitting words of a family member critiquing the way I sang, or the jokes I made, or the way I laughed. I braced myself for the rest of the world to follow suit.

In a very strange way, things took a turn the moment someone mentioned my uniqueness and told me to abide by it. Don’t change for anybody. And I thought it was strange, especially because it came from one of those people who used to make me feel so small back in the day. I guess time teaches you things you never thought you’d have to learn.

I poured myself out, little by little, getting used to the way I took the smallest corner in the room. Always squishing myself so others could fit. Always letting myself hide behind the backs of others, even if I couldn’t see. I feel some part of that now, creeping. It’s hollow. Something like a stone, but I’ve gathered up the courage to take more space now. It wasn’t entirely my choice. One day, like the seams holding clothing together suddenly erupting, I broke. Everything poured out, and there was nothing I could do but let it. It was the ocean, so big and grand, finally breaking the dam. It was my spinal cord finally adjusting.

I’ve waited years for people to feel proud of me. I’m waiting now. I put so much work into making sure I wasn’t doing anything for anyone’s validation, but when I see people praised for their excellence, the words coming from a voice always spoken too softly, I feel like a wilted petal. It is not so much that I wish to be excellent to be somebody, only that I wish to be something that means something to someone else.

I am afraid I am not as kind as I think I am. I am afraid, always, that when I hang up the phone, my mother thinks I do not feel her weight against me. That I do not think of her when I walk past someone else’s mother – that I do not see her in the rain, in the cold, in the air. I am afraid that no one has anything nice to say about me, because I am not nice. I am afraid I am not as kind to my friends as I should be. I am afraid I do not reciprocate as I should. I am afraid that I cannot extend love for love’s sake the way other people deserve.

I think some people want to be certain things – like how some people think they are meant to be husbands, or fathers, or mothers, or friends – I am so often very apologetic that my dreams do not encompass other people as much as they should. I am afraid of people, and I am afraid of loving them, and I am afraid, most of all, that I will never get better.

I am so afraid that no one can tell when I’ve cried for them, or sang with them in mind. I am afraid my friends do not think I miss them. I am afraid, always, that I am not an upright person who does good to the world. I am afraid I will harm it.

In the same vein, I used to think I was smart, and I am realizing now that I am not much of that either. I still feel like the smallest thing in the room, only now, I’m making a big show of trying to be big. I know I am uncertain. I know I am opinionated, and I am always deathly afraid that that is all I’ll be – always opinionated and never correct. I am afraid that my wrongness is only more evidence for how out of shape and form I am. More proof that I am not as good a person as I should be. Viola Davis once said that hell must be when you die and you come face to face with who you are and who you could be.

And I am malformed and spiny, all bones and tight skin. I am a face smushed together and a hunger made vibrant. I just want to be good. I am afraid I will never be good enough. The ocean at my ankles is so heavy, and I keep telling people I crave it all the same. Work hard for your dreams, they say. But what if, in chasing them, I let the absence grow too deep and I forget there are people on the other side. What if I forget to be grateful? What if you can begin to count all the times I don’t say sorry when I should? I am so afraid that my desire to be big will only cause harm. I wish I could dream and think of other people, but even then, even now, I can’t. Am I really so selfish? I cannot be a girlfriend in the way others are. I cannot be a wife. I would not make a very good mother. I barely make a decent friend. I keep telling myself not to make certain jokes, and then I do. Everything cuts.

I can’t describe it. Everything’s changing. It’s not what I thought it was. I am so afraid all the time. I am getting bigger and eating everything else up. That scares me, too.

It’s easy to always assume failure, though, isn’t it? Sometimes it strikes me in the middle of dinner. After I’ve finished talking about everything I think is wrong with me, I suddenly stop. Rapt. Aware. It’s only a transaction, when you really think about it – you’re only trading one chaos for another.

When I find myself wishing for things, my heart swells without warning. I tremble. I stiffen. Something lurches with a stab of pain. I have to wait for it to pass with gritted teeth. Whatever it is, it seems to be disfiguring me from the roots of my being.

Despite all these fears, and the language I still cannot speak with anybody else, I think I am getting better at just letting the mass solidify rather than trying to force it out. I am trying to form no meaningful narrative. I do, however, wish this could just be an accident of fate.