Is This Me?

This is me. 

But not me.

This was taken on our honeymoon, we were both so happy & drunk on planning our future. It was such a good trip. We barley left home for this... just popped over to Sechelt and sat on hot stones next to salty water, drank wine and ate breakfast in bed, letting the chaos of planning a wedding melt away. 

When I look at this, I see me. And not me. 

I remember being that carefree, we can all summon a time in our lives where things were easier than perhaps they are now. But I see an ease in my shoulders and a shine in my face - that trauma and grief wiped away. 

When I look at myself in the mirror today I am slumped, round shouldered like I’m always carrying something heavy, brow furrowed like I have too much to contemplate. 

Not like her - not so light of heart. 

I’ve let go of ever slipping into her shoes again, I could never fit, and maybe I don’t want to. They hard edges of me muscled forward by loss have also made way for my soft insides. 

I’m kinder than she was, I think.

My heart beats bigger than hers did. 

An old photograph, a reminder that there are versions of me, learning and leaning in certain directions. 

This is a version of me that didn’t know heartache. She was so light. 

But she also didn’t know deep depths of being a mother, she hadn’t yet been tested to see how far her heart could stretch before it broke. 

Sometimes I wish to be her again. I wish for the hurt to be wiped clean and for the easy innocence of little life experience. But we all know loss & strife and built into the framework of life, they are stitched into the very fabric of us. 

No matter how many times I could go back to this version of me, the person I am today will always be ahead, waiting.