My hair’s growing. Slowly. And every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I don’t quite recognize the face looking back. It’s like meeting someone new, but someone familiar. A stranger who’s not quite a stranger. And weirdly enough, I kind of like her. I want to know her. I want to know what she’s thinking, what she sees when she looks at me. Who is she, really?
I’ve never been comfortable with this, this thing I’m becoming. There was always a clear line drawn between who I was meant to be and the version of me I couldn’t allow myself to be. I built walls, dressed them up as strength, as protection, but somewhere along the way, I lost touch with what was real. It feels like a shift that’s happening at the edges of my body, but I don’t know how to trace it back. The hair? That’s just one part, but it’s a tangible marker of something bigger, something I can’t quite grasp.
And it’s funny, because I feel like I’m fading into something else, but at the same time, there’s this quiet part of me, no, a louder part now, that feels awake for the first time. Like someone turned the lights on in a room I’ve been avoiding to enter. I’m watching, but not in control. It’s all playing out without my say so, and I feel like I’m both outside of it and living in it at the same time.
There’s a song that’s been lingering in my mind: Saturn by Sleeping at Last. It’s a strange sort of comfort, not just in the music, but in the way it speaks of loss. The song talks about the end of something, yet it doesn’t feel like an end at all. It’s about what lingers. how the pieces of what’s lost continue to echo, somehow. As I listen, I can’t help but notice how the words align with what’s unfolding around me.
It feels like the right time to let go of what I’ve been holding on to. Not to find answers, but to give myself room to let things fall into place. There’s relief in surrender, in letting things scatter and form something else. I’m not sure what, but I think I might be okay with that.