At work. Sprawled out on the floor next to the Squishmallows. Looking out the window. Waiting for the post-school rush to flood in. Less than a week until cutting kid’s hair isn’t my everyday gig. Post Malone is playing softly in the background, and, for some reason, it’s making me feel nostalgic. 5 years ago, I think my jaw would’ve dropped through the floor if she knew future me would say that. To do hair? To enjoy Post Malone? To feel? Every piece of that was so foreign, or rather, wrong to me. For some strange reason I prided myself in my distaste for Post Malone. I relished in the fact that I tried so little on my appearance & would never have put any time, let alone money, efforts, & a career towards cosmetics. And feeling? Oh, feeling… I didn’t.
Now, I sit here on this cheetah print carpet, surrounded by toys, realizing that, even by getting just a snippet into my mundane, present life, it’s pretty darn apparent that I’m not who I was 5 years ago. 5 Years Ago Delaney probably would’ve been disappointed that I do hair for a living, have Post Malone in my top 5 artists on Spotify, & cry more than once a year. And so be it. She wasn’t content with who she was anyways, so what does her opinion really matter? Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not all sunshine & rainbows out here these days. I mean, I work at a kid’s salon for crying out loud. C’mon. It’s sensory overload, screaming kids, an aching back, & watching parents try to negotiate with a 2-year-old on the daily. It’s clinical insanity. Yet I get the opportunity to hear so many folk’s stories. Put a nervous child at ease. Crack a smile (or maybe even a laugh) out of a stone-cold, stoic kiddo. Share a hug. Wherever the moment takes us. And 5 years ago, I wasn’t able to do that, but I’m not so sure that version of Delaney would appreciate the ability to do so. I don’t think she would’ve found value in tearing up alongside a mother having a rough day. She probably would’ve been too busy trying to come up with the right words or push back an emotion to fully be in that moment with that mom. I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I had it, I guess — the ability to be human. It’s been a slow-coming feat, but there I was then & here I am now, with much life in between the two versions of my person.
I simultaneously love & hate that about life, you know — that it just keeps coming & it don’t stop coming. I love who I get to be & become, ebbing & flowing, metamorphosizing (just pretend it’s a word for the sake of context) from version to version of myself. But it comes at the expense of having to let go of who I used to be & come to terms with never going back to exactly who, what, where, or how she was. My surroundings are different. My life experiences span farther & wider. 3 of my 5 last text messages are from people that I’ve met in the last year. So, no matter how hard I reach or how much I *yearn* to go back to what life was, I can’t. Because it’s not there. The trees have grown taller. New roads have been put in. Neighbors have moved. And just like me, others have become entirely new versions of themselves. It’s one of the most beautiful tragedies of life that no moment will be exactly like the last. And there’s nothing in our human control that can prevent that truth from continuing on. No matter how much effort & energy we put towards recreating & regenerating the past — whether that be a moment, a relationship, or a version of ourselves — time never stops & the past will never repeat itself identically. Like Coach K would always say — “Next Play.” No matter how good or bad the previous may have been.
Just like a cloud, a sunset, or a wave, our makeup is always shifting. And as much as I’d like to see that one sunset that one time again, there needs to come a realization that it’s no longer there. The sun, moon, earth, & atoms have moved on, and are already conspiring to create a completely new sunset tomorrow. So, I might as well move on too. I mean, what a wild phenomenon it is that there’s an onslaught of never-before-seen, potentially brighter & more vivid sunsets in my future, right? But I also think it’s okay to miss that one sunset that one time. After all, it felt like I was in the presence of an exclusive, unreleased masterpiece that was hand-painted just for me. Stuck. In-awe. Captivated. I never wanted it to fade. It was one of those sunsets that you’d sit with and wish for time to stop, so you could be in that moment with it forever.
So, maybe that sunset’s not meant to be forgotten, but to stick with me, plastered in the back of my mind, reminding me of how grateful I should be to have gotten to be in those moments, in that location, with that sunset. Now, in the present, I not only get to carry the sweet memory of that one sunset that one time with me everywhere I go, but also get to know I’ve witnessed so many sunsets since & will continue to for the rest of my days. Like I said, a beautiful tragedy it is that everything in life is forever coming, yet forever going.
*I’ve decided “yearn” is a really desperate, kind of pathetic-sounding word. But it’s got an old-school, poetic feel to it at the same time, so then it becomes ~poetically desperate~, thus cancelling out the desperation & making it a valid term for me to use. The power of rebranding, people. Okay, carry on.*