The photos flash by like some crude old fashioned motion picture. Clicking through digitized memories, my family gapes at the screen as if they were underfed goldfish — sometimes laughing, sometimes sighing, sometimes floating away into some weathered story told too many times. There are pictures I don’t recognize, too — ones, like so many things in my life, that seem alien. Unreal. Like that wrinkled, ruddy baby, its face twisted in distrust at the world. Like the shining smile of my mother under tired drooping eyes, and the infant’s tiny hands — so tiny and so perfect.
But then I see the name on the side of the crib. The name of the little girl that sends everything spinning. Has it always been there? It’s not my name — not really — but the faces of my mother, my father, and my two brothers swivel to me. My churning stomach contrasts dreadfully with the rigidity of my spine. That feeling I know so well of everything moving and nothing moving at all. But my family will pretend. For me, they will pretend that the name on the side of the crib is different, and that that baby inside is me. It is, isn’t it?
Later, we come across a photo of a strawberry blond toddler, smacking her lips around a lollipop, beaming in fairy wings as if they weren’t made from cheap tulle wrapped around tired wired frames. Unlike her infant self, the girl’s hair is long and puffy, like a regal cloud above her head. Her posture equally insinuates her expected future as a queen, even if her sequined purple dress trails on the floor. I don’t have the heart to tell her — that she won’t be that queen, but she’ll be something else that she can’t possibly understand, and I hate her for that. For not understanding. For the fact that, if she knew what she’d become, she would scream and kick and bite as I dragged her to our future. Everybody talks about little girls growing up to be women, but no one talks about little girls growing up to be men. Or growing up to be something else entirely.
Next comes the troublesome seven-year-old, the pouty ten-year-old, and the self-conscious tween. I’m not ready for them. My muscles turn to floorboards when I see the girl at the playground. Her legs are kicked out to maintain the forward momentum of the swing, her no-longer-small hands gripping the greasy chains expertly. Hair splayed in the air, and — no, this certainly can’t be me, I think, shaking my head. Not me at all.
The photo is too bright, the sky glaringly blue and the grass unnaturally green, playground sand blindingly white. I achingly wish that this photo was darker, somehow. Less overtly happy, as to reflect the shadows squirming within me at this moment. I make a noise, some guttural expression of loathing and pain, of unknown discomforts and uncured ailments. I want to scream — to them and especially to myself — that the child they see isn’t who’s sitting here now, but I’m too busy digesting the swirling soup inside me that wants to crawl out of my stomach and onto the carpet.
Why do I want so badly to reach inside this photo and strangle this child? To squeeze and squeeze until her ashes slip through my fingers? I’m disgusted. No longer just by the girl, but now by myself as well. What kind of monster am I to think these thoughts? Two forces of abhorrence inside me play tug of war, straining as bits of muscle and tissue snap apart like Christmas crackers. A tornado of thoughts inside my head threatens to obliterate the structures holding me together, and finally something cracks.
I lunge towards the computer, my fingers lethal claws. With one, maybe two clicks, they could all be gone. The ruddy baby with the wrong name, the phony toddler princess, the seven-year-old, the ten-year-old, the tween, and everything in between. Most importantly, I could be free from that wicked, wicked girl on the swing in the sun. She could be gone. Forever.
So why does my heart wrench at that? My mom has grabbed my arm just above the surface of the touch-pad, but it’s like asking a tired old dog to sit whose rear hasn’t left the ground in years. A sigh escapes my lips, long and deep and full of defeat as my arm drops. I can’t delete these photos, despite the wound they’ve opened, despite the fact that the gravedigger doesn’t cry at the sound of dirt hitting another coffin whose contents he’s never met. Everyone thinks that that girl and I are one in the same, but I’m not convinced. Is the knife still the same knife after its handle, then later its blade has been replaced?
We certainly don’t share the same name and personality, talents and interests. Saying we look alike is possible, but a stretch that threatens to break any band that might still tie us. Most strikingly, we don’t share the same life or the same memories, and this is what makes me pause. This girl, four years, seven years, and fifteen years ago lived independently of what I carry, both burden and bright. She lived sweetly and stupidly; a unicorn inconvenienced by trying to untangle her mane with offensive polished hooves.
No, I am most definitely not this girl. These photos are from a funeral of a dichotomous husband, and I am the ex-wife who must decide whether to cry from grief or relief. No, I am most definitely not this girl. But my life is not untouched by her. Erasing her would be annihilating the foundational blocks of something intricate, even if those blocks are obscured by layers of plaster and lead paint. Even if they’re cracked and bruised. So, even though part of me still screams, I decide to let the building stand. I decide to leave her be.
But then I see the name on the side of the crib. The name of the little girl that sends everything spinning. Has it always been there? It’s not my name — not really — but the faces of my mother, my father, and my two brothers swivel to me. My churning stomach contrasts dreadfully with the rigidity of my spine. That feeling I know so well of everything moving and nothing moving at all. But my family will pretend. For me, they will pretend that the name on the side of the crib is different, and that that baby inside is me. It is, isn’t it?
Later, we come across a photo of a strawberry blond toddler, smacking her lips around a lollipop, beaming in fairy wings as if they weren’t made from cheap tulle wrapped around tired wired frames. Unlike her infant self, the girl’s hair is long and puffy, like a regal cloud above her head. Her posture equally insinuates her expected future as a queen, even if her sequined purple dress trails on the floor. I don’t have the heart to tell her — that she won’t be that queen, but she’ll be something else that she can’t possibly understand, and I hate her for that. For not understanding. For the fact that, if she knew what she’d become, she would scream and kick and bite as I dragged her to our future. Everybody talks about little girls growing up to be women, but no one talks about little girls growing up to be men. Or growing up to be something else entirely.
Next comes the troublesome seven-year-old, the pouty ten-year-old, and the self-conscious tween. I’m not ready for them. My muscles turn to floorboards when I see the girl at the playground. Her legs are kicked out to maintain the forward momentum of the swing, her no-longer-small hands gripping the greasy chains expertly. Hair splayed in the air, and — no, this certainly can’t be me, I think, shaking my head. Not me at all.
The photo is too bright, the sky glaringly blue and the grass unnaturally green, playground sand blindingly white. I achingly wish that this photo was darker, somehow. Less overtly happy, as to reflect the shadows squirming within me at this moment. I make a noise, some guttural expression of loathing and pain, of unknown discomforts and uncured ailments. I want to scream — to them and especially to myself — that the child they see isn’t who’s sitting here now, but I’m too busy digesting the swirling soup inside me that wants to crawl out of my stomach and onto the carpet.
Why do I want so badly to reach inside this photo and strangle this child? To squeeze and squeeze until her ashes slip through my fingers? I’m disgusted. No longer just by the girl, but now by myself as well. What kind of monster am I to think these thoughts? Two forces of abhorrence inside me play tug of war, straining as bits of muscle and tissue snap apart like Christmas crackers. A tornado of thoughts inside my head threatens to obliterate the structures holding me together, and finally something cracks.
I lunge towards the computer, my fingers lethal claws. With one, maybe two clicks, they could all be gone. The ruddy baby with the wrong name, the phony toddler princess, the seven-year-old, the ten-year-old, the tween, and everything in between. Most importantly, I could be free from that wicked, wicked girl on the swing in the sun. She could be gone. Forever.
So why does my heart wrench at that? My mom has grabbed my arm just above the surface of the touch-pad, but it’s like asking a tired old dog to sit whose rear hasn’t left the ground in years. A sigh escapes my lips, long and deep and full of defeat as my arm drops. I can’t delete these photos, despite the wound they’ve opened, despite the fact that the gravedigger doesn’t cry at the sound of dirt hitting another coffin whose contents he’s never met. Everyone thinks that that girl and I are one in the same, but I’m not convinced. Is the knife still the same knife after its handle, then later its blade has been replaced?
We certainly don’t share the same name and personality, talents and interests. Saying we look alike is possible, but a stretch that threatens to break any band that might still tie us. Most strikingly, we don’t share the same life or the same memories, and this is what makes me pause. This girl, four years, seven years, and fifteen years ago lived independently of what I carry, both burden and bright. She lived sweetly and stupidly; a unicorn inconvenienced by trying to untangle her mane with offensive polished hooves.
No, I am most definitely not this girl. These photos are from a funeral of a dichotomous husband, and I am the ex-wife who must decide whether to cry from grief or relief. No, I am most definitely not this girl. But my life is not untouched by her. Erasing her would be annihilating the foundational blocks of something intricate, even if those blocks are obscured by layers of plaster and lead paint. Even if they’re cracked and bruised. So, even though part of me still screams, I decide to let the building stand. I decide to leave her be.