April

is older and wiser

I can be pretty hard on myself if I’m not careful.

There is an insecure and persistent little voice inside me that is so quick to judge and shame. It’s an expert shit talker and dream stomper. 

I’d love to wallow in self pity (really), but I don’t think this voice is unique to me (though she is prone to sunburn and intolerant to gluten). It’s common to be your own harshest critic. I hear it in songs and talk about it with friends. We can be so quick to make ourselves feel small.

Over the past few years, I’ve been in more regular conversation with this shame-loving part of myself thanks to lotsa therapy and Betty Gilpin’s All the Women in my Brain. 

As I’ve gotten acquainted with this part, I’ve found myself back in the third grade. 

In third grade, my hair was bowlish and my gauchos were pinstriped. Things in my world were pretty normal until they weren’t. I got sick, like real sick. There were days and days of missing school and sitting on the couch in pain. Something wasn’t right in my eight-year-old body, and I didn’t have the language or the medical degree to understand what it was. 

My parents took me to dozens of doctors’ appointments to try to understand what was happening. I watched as doctors pulled my parents to the side to insist, eyes wide, that nothing was wrong. They asked if I was doing ok in school. Visit after visit left us with no new information, only more questions and doubts. 

I would leave these appointments feeling far away from the very real thing that was happening to me. I even started to doubt myself. Maybe those doctors were right. Maybe I was just making it up?

A few appointments later, I was rushed into surgery to fix a birth defect that was identified in my abdomen. The pain I’d been feeling was a symptom, and it would take a few months to heal. 

It was comforting to know that I would get better soon. But it was hard to forget the feeling of being wrong. 

As I grew up, I distanced myself from this part of my childhood. It was hard for my growing mind to make sense of it. To my friends, I made a joke of this period of my life, eager to deflect shame. Quick to distance myself from being wrong. 

This week, I turned 27. 

Like a good grown-up, I used my birthday as an opportunity to reflect. I looked back on the lessons I learned and thoughtfully collected the things I want to take into the 27 years ahead (no gauchos). The gluten-hating, guilt-loving part of myself couldn’t help but crash the party, desperate to paint previous periods of my life in shades of shame. 

This birthday, unlike the birthdays before, I asked that sunburnt legend to take a break. For the first time, I’m choosing to look back on all the years of my life with something that feels like love and acceptance. 

Growing up is a complicated thing. Our bodies are changing, and our brains are developing. We are clumsy and messy and imperfect up until the end. 

I really like the 27-year-old I’ve become (brag). I am a proud product of all of the years that came before this one, even the ones that are shaded in shame. 

When I think back to third grade today, I don’t feel so bad towards eight-year-old me. I wasn’t wrong. I was doing the best I could. 

In year 27, I’d like to do the same. 

Older-ly(?), 

Maura