Since Dad’s death last October, I’ve spent time looking through boxes of old letters, photographs, and papers. Why anyone would keep a letter written in 1961 (one of many) is beyond me. I’m wondering if there’s a hoarding tendency in our family I need to note. One of his younger sisters was a hoarder.
One photograph I found has taken me down a lane of nostalgia, giving me an insight into myself I had yet to acknowledge
Here’s the photo.
I’m the girl in the middle. The young woman on the left is a friend of the family. She’s in her late teens. Taken in 1970, in this photo, I’m four years old. What do I see in this photo? A curious, precocious little girl. It doesn’t occur to the four-year-old me that people don’t want to hear what she has to say. Clearly, the young woman is reading something. She’s not at all interested in what I have to say. She’s being polite by not brushing me off, but she also is trying to focus on her reading. I’m guessing (I think accurately) she’d like for me to leave. I don’t get any of her cues. I’m talking. I’m interesting, so of course people want to hear me talk. That was my four-year-old logic. Why do I know this? Because somewhere between four and 57, I’ve lost that sense of unbridled confidence in my words. Something in me was beaten down often enough that I don’t have that same level of go up to anyone and say what I like/want/feel.
I want it back. I want that feeling back. Badly.
This blog is in part my attempt to regain the audacity of my four-year-old self. It’ll be awkward for awhile until I figure out just how to be that confident in myself again. Where did I get that? What happened that I lost it? How do I get it back?
The answers elude me. For now, perhaps. I look at the photo a lot and tell myself, “she’s in there somewhere” and right now, that’s enough.