getting to know the new me
While I sit in my childhood bedroom, Miley Cyrus’s “Butterfly Fly Away” is blasting on my Amazon Echo Dot.
This room has seen it all. 3AM all nighters studying for my APUSH exams. Fights between my teenage self and my parents. Sleepless nights while I cried about my breakups. Finding the perfect dress to wear to my college graduation.
As I sit here, I can’t help but feel like life is bittersweet.
I mean, I feel fine. It’s not as bad as I thought, right?
In-between commuting to NYC for my job, finding time to “hot girl walk,” and listening to Noah Kahan’s new songs on repeat for far too long, reality hits me. And it truly is nothing short of bittersweet.
I’ve had a hard time accepting the reality that I’m almost 22 years old. No offense to Taylor Swift, but I’m not sure I want to “feel 22.”
Recently, I look in the mirror and ponder when exactly my adolescent lazy eye went away, or when my body suddenly decided it was ready to grow into its curves. When did my sequin Justice tank tops get traded for beige trousers?
Yet, I still find myself daydreaming about my future New York City apartment, the outfits I’ll wear to happy hour with my girlfriends, and the Sex and the City-like memories I’ll make (minus Mr. Big).
But, selfishly, I still want none of that. That girl in the mirror feels like an imposter, a phony. That isn’t the same girl who once believed she was going to make it big on Broadway and sing alongside Lea Michele.
I want to become that girl again. To curl up in my old bunk bed in my childhood room. The room I requested to have painted teal blue at age 12, which was then painted over later. That room is egg-white now.
I want the 7am car rides with my mom and sister to school. Coldplay and John Mayer blasted out the windows, and we’d sing about love and heartbreak, before I even knew what those concepts really meant. Pieces of those car rides stayed with me, per the John Mayer songs on my playlist. However, I listen to him while driving my own Jeep to the train station three days a week for work.
It has been an incredibly bittersweet experience getting to know the new me. No aspects of this woman are perfect, by any means. I am lucky to even have the pleasure of meeting her… some aren’t so lucky. However, I look at the life I am living, and the life that continues to lie before me, and I wonder if it becomes easier.
How many times have our parents, grandparents even, met new versions of themselves? Which version do they like the best, if any at all? Is it exciting to find out new versions of yourself that exist?
I like to think that all of the future versions of me will like one another, even if they’re different. To be quite honest, I hope they are.
I hope one version of my future self gets to slow dance with my lover to L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole in the kitchen. I also hope one of those versions is fluent in Italian. Maybe one of those versions will finally go for surfing lessons, and fulfill 12-year-old Cassie’s dreams.
It’s bittersweet to think about the dreams I had for myself when I was young, and the dreams I have now. I’m sure in twenty years, I’m going to look at the 2023 version of myself and reminisce.
Nothing we imagine for ourselves truly ever happens, does it?
Where do I currently stand? My days have been nothing but longing for the past, yet anxiously anticipating the future.
I wish I knew how to simply stick to the present and learn to appreciate the current version of myself. Because truly, I am so lucky to know her.
