Break me

XIX

Dear mom,

I looked at pictures of myself. Pictures of me when I was little.

Me on the floor.      Me with my siblings lined up in our easter outfits and me wearing tennis shoes with my easter dress.      Me in the garage helping dad wearing a red coat three times too big for me and an old baseball cap.      Me at Christmas in a family picture while trying to balance this white stuffed cat on my shoulder.      Me staring stiffly at the camera like it's going to kill me.      Me and my sisters all dressed in matching dresses with you at your mother daughter banquet and me wearing twenty bracelets on my wrists and this weird rainbow necklace that I thought was beautiful.     Me and my sisters all wearing pink sweatpants for tumbling class and me being the only one in white because I thought white was better than pink.     Me in pigtails.     Me glaring at the camera. Cameras were a serious matter.     Me laughing and chasing the cat.      Me smiling and smiling like it was free.      Me not caring what I looked like in the picture because it was just a picture.

Then I got older and started looking different in the pictures. I looked miserable, like I wanted to be somewhere else. And I did want to be somewhere else. It was like I knew I looked terrible and I didn't want there to be proof of it anywhere because I didn't know how to fix it.

I'm not sure if I still look like that or not. Smiles do not come without a cost.

I was trying to decide what had changed. What has changed from the me who knew my purpose and was happy to the me who looked miserable?

I grew up.

I didn't know growing up had such a cost.      If I had known growing up wasn't free, I should have asked the genie to keep me stuck in that moment of a three year old, free to do what I wanted. But I always had wanted to grow up.

Yours. Grayson.