A message to my younger self- Hey girl!
Images: Ruby Waters
The Golden Globes Awards took place just a few days ago, and the red carpet featured a reunion I never knew I needed.
Actresses we looked up to as children on the big screen, and now we get that chance again. Looking up to them, now, as strong, independent women. Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and Zendaya, stood that evening, all as award nominees.
And it got me thinking…
As I’m getting older, there’s a small sense in me that grows more and more as each day passes. Something that longs for a reminder of the child I once was. I look for it in the actresses I grew up watching, the clothes I wear, the hobbies I participate in, and even the perspective I try to look from in each scenario. I try to remind myself of the me before I grew up, who had one simple wish, which was to be a grown up.
But now that I’m at that stage where it seems my wish has finally come true, the little girl in me feels more present then ever. I surround myself with my favourite smells I grew up with, wearing clothes in odd colours that don’t match, watching Disney films on repeat.
I would like to think it’s because it feels almost like it takes me back to a simpler time, when the only bad thing that could happen was an early bedtime before I could finish watching Barbie in a Mermaid Table. Long before the daunting fear of being accepted in society without a face full of makeup, or clothes that fit the status Quo. And years before the heartbreak that hit her, from friends, boys and even family,
But I’m starting to realise that it isn’t because of the fear of my present self, living and breathing in the right now. In fact, it was never fear at all. It’s a sensation of gratitude and gratefulness. That everything bad that happened and continues to happen, I will get through and return stronger. Not only the grown up me, but the little girl who played with barbies, and ran through sprinklers. She was and always has been strong, and it is because of her that I remember it.
I like to think back to the innocent attitude of little me when talking to strangers, whose kindness overrides every other emotion. I think back to the tantrums of little me when I cry and remember that it’s never been that deep in the long run, and I always think back to everything I had longed to be, back when I was little me, as a reminder myself that I have it all now as a grown up me.
I wake up in my big double bed every morning, I write my silly little thoughts and people read them sometimes, I found my prince charming in a world full of frogs, I drive around in my little car to my little job and take part in hobbies I grew up doing and have now returned to.
We all carry our younger selves in us through each day. We do it because they deserve all the happiness we get to experience in the now. With so much pressure we put on ourselves in a world filled with too high of expectations we must remember that she never deserves hat.
She deserves laughter, love and kindness- and I suppose, we definitely deserve all of that too.
Written by Ruby Waters
Edited by Isabel Butler