The mirror — vertical, curved, mounted on the wall next to my bed —
Showed me this — myself, fourteen, nearly fifteen
Resolute, victorious, humbled
I’d learned a hard lesson, but I’d learned it
About surviving and speaking up
And letting cuts heal
But can you see what I missed
When I say this to my reflection:
I’ve done the hardest thing there is now
I’ve learned the biggest thing there is now
I can’t imagine there’s any more wisdom to be gained
And I honestly racked my brains
Searching to know what I didn’t know
But I didn’t know
I was fourteen
And thought, with the first real trial of my life
I had figured out the world
Of course, it’s naivety
But it clung to me in the next years
As I watched that lesson buck under the weight
Of life and all the ways we change within it
And if I had just tried to understand
That it’s about learning, not certainty
That it’s about earning wisdom
Not being wise
Then maybe I would’ve met my own eyes
With something a little gentler that day in the mirror
With a little more permission
For my beliefs to sway, and my judgments to still
But to this day I am fighting it
The truth is there is so much I don’t know
I want to say that I approach that unknowing with acceptance and curiosity
But I am so much that same girl
Who looked at growing up like a finish line
But it is not a finish line
To be raced across
Life is not a marathon, or at least not just one
It is a string of routes across a mountain range that never ends
It’s a good thing I like to run
With Love,
Natalie