Wednesday, March 13, 2019 // The Statement
3B
i.
I’ve been feeling more and more lately
that there are two girls trapped inside of
me. Like the proverbial angel and devil on
each shoulder, this conflicting two wage
constant battle and I find myself deeper
pulled into their tangled web as each day
passes me by. There is the good girl. If
you’ve met me before, this is the one you
likely came across. She wears a smile on
her face, maybe a little bit forced, but none-
theless earnest. She is crisply if not ornate-
ly packaged, wearing nice clothes bought
in shiny bags. She applies her lipstick with
a delicate hand, careful not to smudge
around the edges. She is normal. But nor-
malcy is tenuous, and if you know the
other girl you do not know the good girl.
If you know her, if you’ve had the distinct
displeasure of witnessing the anxiety and
the neuroses and the impulsions which the
good girl tries so hard to scrub away after
she reappears, I should apologize. Not only
to you, but to her, the girl you could have
known. Because lately I’ve been feeling
that there are two girls inside of me, and
they are playing tug-of-war; but what they
do not know is that this is a game without
any winners. I am not me, I am them, but
I cannot be them at the same time and yet
one cannot exist without the other. So, you
see, I am in a conundrum. Who am I, when
all I am is chemicals working wrong and all
I feel is an illusion? Let these be the whis-
pers in your ear.
ii.
I am not special. Everybody wears
masks to hide the truth, and nobody is how
they appear on the outside. Reality is an
incomprehensible television show wherein
we are all playacting our best self. Some of
us are just better actors than others. And
I would like to tell you now, that I do not
know where I am going, but that I am try-
ing so hard with every molecule in my body
to get there. They do not tell you how diffi-
cult getting better is in the pamphlets they
give you. Those bright smiling faces do not
express the tears which brim beneath the
surface, and even as I bite my lips I can-
not keep them down. The words written in
Sharpie marker tell me to smile, that there
is joy in this world, but the words inside
my head suggest otherwise and they are
carved in stone. Some nights I cannot leave
my bed. The papers gather, the phone calls
go to voicemail, and still I resist returning
up for air. I have learned how to find com-
fort in the wallows of my depression and
how to be soothed by the familiar lullaby
of my anxieties. “Better” is a foreign word,
a far-off planet. This is all just a dream, and
it is simpler to stay asleep than to pinch
myself awake.
iii.
College is a time of expectations. The
only thing heavier than these expecta-
tions is the urge to not let everybody down.
I want to be better. I see her sometimes,
when I close my eyes, the girl I might be
if I could only get better. There is the bet-
ter girl. The better girl is unpolluted. Her
every smile is genuine. No other girls bury
themselves within her. I want to become
her, to shed my skin and wear hers instead.
Sometimes I feel I am growing closer to
her, but I have always found that certain
parts of me hold on tight. Like jealous lov-
ers, they hold me closer each time I try to
run away. I suppose I should feel flattered,
but I was never good under observation.
iv.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Better:
Brush your hair. Brush your teeth. Smile,
even if it isn’t natural, because one day
it will be natural, and all you are doing is
practicing for that very day. Let go. Let go
of the bullshit dogging you down, let go
of the thoughts in your head, let go of the
people who leave their fingerprints on you,
nothing is irreversible, no stain cannot be
cleaned, nobody and nothing is permanent
but you. Let go. Let go. Let go.
v.
Someday this will be the past, and I will
be in the future. I imagine the future all the
time, until it feels like a book I’ve read and
loved. But like a book, I wonder if it is just
a fiction I have written for myself, or if the
reality I dream of is nothing but another
byproduct of my mind that I cannot con-
trol. Yet I still believe in it. I believe that
the good girl and the other girl will even-
tually hold hands. I believe that the better
girl will be close enough to touch someday.
I will be happy, a temporary sort of happy, a
normal sort of happy, and it will be enough.
I will be enough. There is a version of me
somewhere who wears her hair short and
who does not feel like she needs to change,
and I trust that I am that someone, and I
believe that someday gets closer every day.
BY JENA VALLINA,
STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
Dissociation
This is a self portrait I created in photoshop that
contains all my own photography and illustrations.
-Lauren Kuzee