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

