Ara Ara’s Mind

{AN: I wrote this in college when I finally accepted that I wanted to be a writer. I submitted this to our local college anthology and it was not accepted. I thought about this piece a lot and obsessed about every word choice, I think you can tell There are some points where things do not make sense. I have thought about writing another piece to accompany this one, but I think if I do it will have to come naturally. Enjoy.}

You always thought growing up would be something you would notice. Midnight would strike on your eighteenth birthday welcoming freedom and maturity to course through your body. Dispelling all the thoughts and habits that made you feel stuck in place. Your nails would rapidly grow long and strong from not being constantly bitten. Rejuvenation would strike your sleep cycle and give you immense energy.

You expected these things to be blatant. You expected to notice when your mindset changed. You expected to be aware of where you came from and where you’re going. Instead, when your eighteenth birthday comes, nothing but normality pumps through your veins. Unable to notice the minor shift your mind starts to make.

From then on, your mind becomes a field of blooming crops that die as the seasons change. Lessons and habits grow until their unkempt. Vanishing into the rich soil of your mind. Unknowingly extending its roots into your reality. Applying newfound logic that your mind has nurtured. And you never notice. You can never see those plants and love them. You never get to care for them properly. They grow and die with the many people you have been.

Growing moves in silence as birthdays come and go. Making you remember every crush you became utterly obsessed with. Or sitting on the itchy carpet in your room longing to be eighteen already. Growing up looms over you as you move around your apartment unaware of the changes you’ve gone through. It catches up to you while you look in the mirror. Gripping your stomach with your worn fingers, questioning if you’ve gained weight since high school. Smoothing over your eyebrows, noticing how sharp your chin has gotten. Picking at the dry patches on your cheeks, trying to see if that person that felt uncomfortable in their body still existed. In the warm bulbous lights of your bathroom, growth wraps its arms around all your new features. Sucking the warmth from the air.

It’s nauseating, noticing how different you’ve become. Realizing that so many things about you have changed. That you aren’t that eleven-year-old who thought too much. Or that sixteen-year-old who thought they didn’t need friends. You’re someone completely different and you don’t even know who. Would you always never know? Would you always have to wait, and see? Would you always have to leave versions of you behind to learn who they are and what they wanted?  Would you ever have an inkling of who you were going to be?

Growth is dark and heavy. It’s unforgiving and raw. It will always be. Things will always be dying. Will always be changing. Can that be fought? Can you try to push the fear of growth so far away that it would never come back? Or would it sit and fester, waiting to catch you off guard?

The edges of your world fade to black as you stare at your eyes in the mirror. You don’t mean too, but you do anyway. Searching for your past selves. Searching for the things that have changed. Searching for the things you started to accept about yourself. Searching for an indication that you have grown up. Searching, and searching, and searching. For anything. A memory, a voice, a thought, a song, that will tell you who you are and where you’re going.

You can’t find anything. You know nothing. And that’s the scariest part.