Losing myself

Well, tonight I'm doing something a little out of the ordinary. Sometimes, especially when I'm feeling particularly down, I feel the need to purge myself of the past, both by discarding (or boxing away) particular items, and thereby removing the reminders they carry with them, good or bad, because I feel I don't deserve happiness.

Last time, I wiped my walls bare of all the artwork that adorned them, which had given my room a sort of vibrant, warm feeling, and demonstrated the capacity I once had to be creative. This was somewhere around the time that I relinquished all my awards and high school memories to a single cardboard box, an excellent reminder that I really thought I was something, but was horribly mistaken, for a few awards in high school do not a stable or intelligent person create...simply a schoolgirl who does all her homework and strives to please everyone else.

Tonight, the target (no pun intended-you'll see why I say that) is my closet. I have so many clothes that my closet almost looks like it's ready to burst. Well, not anymore. I've already purged my closet of most of my shirts. I'm no longer the slim, pretty (but clueless) girl that I was when those clothes fit. 80 pounds and most of a college career, as well as a lost job, later, I'm just different-can't explain it, but I know it. Upon seeing the empty bars that have emerged, I feel like I'm looking inside myself and stripping away the things that masked me, made me into what everyone else wanted me to be.

There are also the clothes from Target (hence the explanation starting the previous paragraph). That job was a huge chunk of my life, no doubt, and I learned a lot from it, but my memory is stained by the past mistakes I made, as well as the apex for me, as far as looks are concerned. I toss in a box an array of red shirts (and soon khaki pants) of various sizes, reminding me that I'll never be that young and pretty again, no matter how many diets I go on, miles I run, or anything else.

As I look at the things I'm putting into storage, in hopes that I may one day be that thin again, remembering times when I had a job, could do a few more things for myself, was beautiful and still somewhat intelligent...I feel kind of dismayed. At the same time, I realize first that I no longer wear those clothes, and also that I will miss the presence of a closet full of clothes; I also realize that these things, along with the artwork that at one time ensconsed my walls and awards that I could brag about, are still a part of my past, still connected to me, yet now I feel a distinct separation from them.

Whilst sometimes it's nice to reflect upon and remember the past, and happy memories that come with it, it's also disappointing to have the thought looming in my head that I've gone so far downhill, and lost myself (if I ever knew myself to begin with). I'm no longer innocent and pure...those things were, in a way, taken away from me against my will. I'm no longer the brainiac, the involved student, the competitor, the pretty girl, the good sister and child, that I once was. I sort of miss the good things of my past, even though they were enveloped with darkness and astounding disappointment too. Maybe one day I'll be able to pull out all these boxes that once defined me, and find a part of myself within, and perhaps be actually HAPPY to be the person I am. Until then, I just have to learn to live with myself and my loneliness and lack of self-efficacy. Goodbye, old Ashley. Hello.....I don't know who you are. Goodbye memories, hello scary and mysterious future. Goodbye me, hello stranger. I am gone.