Finding Yourself Finding yourself is not as beautiful as everyone makes it out to me. Every tumblr post ever has lied to you. You don’t find yourself with arms splayed open wide with glacial winds whipping your hair at the top of a mountain during the golden hour. You don’t find yourself perfectly perched in a coffee shop with hands dramatically wrapped around a mug in a matching winter outfit, smelling the pumpkin spice latte you just ordered. And you don’t find yourself in the arms of yet another man destined to mistreat you, at 1am thinking of all the things he does that you hate but it’s okay you can fix him. Finding yourself is the ugliest experience in the world. Finding yourself is unwrapping every layer of habit you have ever accumulated and deciding whether or not you want to keep it- and if you don’t, trying to figure out how to get rid of it for good. It’s like losing weight when you’re the kind of person who gains 10kg by looking at a slice of cake. Finding yourself is realising you order latte’s because your mum always ordered them and so that was what you first learnt to order- but you actually hate the milk to foam to coffee ratio. It’s going to a coffee shop and wanting a cappuccino but still ordering a latte because saying “large soy latte” is so ingrained in your speech that to not say it is to disown your own mother. It is putting 3 sugars in your coffee and kicking yourself because you prefer lactose free milk but you’ve just always said soy. It’s ordering a lactose free cappuccino and waiting for the repercussion, that never comes. Finding yourself is staying home on weekends, bored, and not knowing why. It’s realising that every boyfriend you’ve had has demanded you be home and around to ignore while they play video games. It’s realising you say no to invitations of parties and going out because you’ve always been too scared to ask permission from your previous boyfriends. It’s picking up your phone to call your boyfriend to ask if you could be an hour late home because you wanted to have a drink with your work mates, then realising you left him 4 weeks ago, 180 000km away- and he already has a new partner. Finding yourself is putting the phone down, ordering a double and hoping the vodka will hide your shaking hands. Finding yourself is falling for yet another boy with the same name as your first love, and not knowing whether it was coincidence or masochism. Finding yourself is noticing you’re only swiping right on men with kids in their profiles, as if you’re trying to fill a void your stepdaughters love once filled. Finding yourself is walking down to the quay at the bottom of your street, looking over the water and crying. Crying for the lack of self you feel. Crying for every panic attack you’ve ever had after your lovers sexual touch turned into the scald of a nightmare once lived. Crying for every uneasy fall of your stomach when a boyfriend has hung up on you, so afraid to be alone. Crying for how long you held on to a boy who would never be a man for you. Crying for every emotional outburst you were unable to control, that lost you leadership and friends. Crying for how far you had to run to peel back these layers. Crying for how you wish you could go back and fix who you were. Finding yourself is looking at every curve and dip on your face, and wondering how you could think your mother so beautiful, but yourself so ugly- when you have her nose and her smile. It’s wondering how the eyes your father gave you could make you see the good in everyone you meet, but only the ugly in everything you do. Finding yourself is reaching for a book and wondering who made you put them down for so long, and why you listened. Finding yourself is caressing every purple scar on your thigh and crying for how lost you felt. Finding yourself is every morning in the mirror. Finding yourself is every latte you don’t order. Finding yourself is every Sunday spent exploring. Finding yourself is not falling in love with another Michael. Finding yourself is crying. Finding yourself is doing things you once abandoned but always loved. Finding yourself is healing mistakes you once made. Finding yourself is a process. I’ll let you know when I finally do.