She Used to be Mine

I had almost fin­ished a post when I heard the song.

My musi­cal idol, Sara Bareilles, recent­ly com­posed a new musi­cal, “Wait­ress,” (think stage adap­ta­tion of the movie with Keri Rus­sell) and the first sin­gle from the musi­cal was just released.

“She Used to Be Mine” stopped the air in my lungs.

I lis­tened, twice.
Then one more time.
Then, with­out anoth­er thought, I select­ed all, and hit delete.

I had been try­ing to write about Sep­tem­bers. To explain my absence from writ­ing, and how my heart triples in weight every year. I’ve been try­ing to write about it since August, but couldn’t get the words on the page. Then this song, this mag­i­cal, melan­cholic, deep, raw, hon­est song, helped me find words for what has been stuck for so long, and I had not been able to find the words to say.

If you have seen the movie or know the sto­ry, you might be wondering/panicking how I could pos­si­bly relate — I am not a wait­ress with a super pow­er for bak­ing pies, nor do I have a hor­ri­bly dys­func­tion­al mar­riage (for which I am extreme­ly grateful…although if the Pats go to the Super Bowl again this year, all bets are off). How­ev­er, the main char­ac­ter finds her­self in a posi­tion in life that she didn’t expect and didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly ask for. She has to come to terms with the things that she feels like she has lost about herself.

It’s not sim­ple to say,
that most days I don’t rec­og­nize me

Some­times I feel like I spend most of my time hang­ing out with some­one I don’t know. I move through life in this body that I don’t under­stand, with likes and dis­likes I don’t rec­og­nize. It needs things that I don’t know, and notes my lack of com­pre­hen­sion 99.9% of the time.

This became even more clear when an invi­ta­tion recent­ly arrived in my mail­box. My high school built a new arts build­ing, and they named it after the sin­gle most extra­or­di­nary teacher I have ever had — Chris Wag­n­er, my art teacher. They invit­ed all of her for­mer stu­dents to the dedication.

(And yes, that’s the cal­iber of teach­ing I am refer­ring to — they built and named a build­ing, just for her. No big deal.)

My old self would have RSVPed the very first day. I would have been beyond excit­ed to see the build­ing, and many of my favorite teach­ers and for­mer class­mates. I would have dug out my Var­si­ty Art t‑shirt for the event.

(We were State Champs. Admit it, you’re jealous)

Instead, I froze.

I let the invi­ta­tion stare back at me from my desk­top for months.
What do you say to peo­ple you haven’t seen in 15 years?
How do I respond to ques­tions about kids and jobs and trav­el and life?
The response “tread­ing water and stay­ing alive” is a bit of a buz­zkill to live­ly conversation.

(Although, I’d like to think that all par­tic­i­pants of the event also share my pro­cliv­i­ty for stay­ing on the alive side of things…)

Attend­ing social events in a body you don’t know, is a bit like con­stant­ly parad­ing around with a new part­ner. There’s ner­vous antic­i­pa­tion of how he/she will be received by your com­mu­ni­ty, and the unset­tling knot in your stom­ach that you don’t actu­al­ly know what she’ll say or how he’ll feel about the event.

It’s not easy to know.
I’m not any­thing like I used to be
Although it’s true
I was nev­er attention’s sweet center,
I still remem­ber that girl

The truth is that I’m not the per­son they remember.
Not even a lit­tle bit.
I don’t teach or sing, swim or run. I’m not mak­ing art, nor have I trav­eled the world as planned. I don’t have sto­ries from my class­room, nor can I talk about this year’s Calde­cott win­ners. I can’t hon­est­ly tell you the last time I picked up a viola.

In fact, the per­son they vot­ed “most friend­ly” spends most of her time alone.

Its dif­fi­cult to admit, but I’m not proud of this new per­son in my life.
I hope some­day I will be, but I don’t think I know her well enough, yet.

It’s much like a can­vas on an easel, wait­ing patient­ly for the return of the artist. But instead of a col­or­ful and evolv­ing com­po­si­tion, mine has been hap­haz­ard­ly smeared with a fresh coat of ges­so to cov­er all that lies beneath. As if, with one quick swipe, all that had been grow­ing was flattened.

And that feel­ing, of walk­ing into the stu­dio expect­ing to con­tin­ue work on your life’s mas­ter­piece and instead find­ing it drip­ping with thick paste, has yet to go away.

I want to tell you that it has. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’m ashamed that it hasn’t.
It has been 5 years.
FIVE years!
Get a grip, Lydia.

She is hard on herself
She is bro­ken and won’t ask for help
She is messy, but she’s kind
She is lone­ly most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beau­ti­ful pie
She is gone, but she used to be mine

She used to be mine.
This per­son that I knew, inside out and upside down, used to be mine. For bet­ter or for worse, for awk­ward growth spurts and an unprece­dent­ed long run with ortho­don­tia, she was mine.

And.
Well.

I miss her.

I took a deep breath (or ten), put on my brave face, and went to the event. Buoyed by a dear friend and fel­low var­si­ty art team mem­ber, I ner­vous­ly nav­i­gat­ed the waves of famil­iar faces.

What a gift.

To be able to be there to hon­or some­one who had inde­scrib­able impact on my life.
To give her a big hug and say thank you.
To see my beloved art his­to­ry and math teach­ers, and give my the­ater teacher a big hug.
To joke about babysit­ting for my teach­ers’ chil­dren, and laugh about mem­o­ries of trips abroad.

I almost let fear and expec­ta­tion get the bet­ter of me. I almost missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty that won’t hap­pen again.
It was a stark wake-up call. My life, is a gift to be lived — not placed on the book­shelf until it looks exact­ly as I imagined.

‘Til it final­ly reminds her to fight just a little
To bring back the fire in her eyes
That’s been gone but it used to be mine

On the sur­face, I’m not the per­son any­one remem­bers — myself includ­ed. But maybe beneath the thick lay­ers of ges­so and change, it’s still the same com­po­si­tion. Maybe if I scratch hard enough on those extra coasts of paint, I can still find that girl. Maybe, this is my chance to cre­ate some­thing new.

She was gone, but I hope she’s still mine.