8

i opened my pictures folder and randomly selected. this is a photo from 2005. i look at this and remember exactly what the hair product i used to use smelled like. i drove a honda. i lived in echo park. i was an aspiring actress. (but really i was a barista who took acting classes and rarely auditioned.) i wrote in my journal every night, a pack of cigarettes and bottle of wine to keep me company. i listened to a lot of damien rice.

this version of me is a little bottle of perfume hidden in an apothecary case. i was content in the forward motion of my life and filled with anxiety in the calmest waters. i was simultaneously incredibly independent and terrified of being (staying) alone. i had hope tempered with abject pessimism.

i was much like me. just younger.

i've been thinking a lot about these versions of ourselves. of trying to reconcile the many versions of me that i carry underneath my skin. it happens when i look at current pictures of myself and think fuck, man. is that what i really look like? sometimes, when i'm not quite awake, i think i am still the girl in the photo above. i think i have all the time in the world and that everything will magically work out one day. i think the future is something i can worry about later.

i am too old to be so young.