From the Files

[qos]

I was sifting through some not-in-file-folders miscellany a few minutes ago and found this magazine image. Something about it caught and held my attention, and I studied it for a long time, sifting through and analyzing my feelings. Finally a realization hit home harder than it ever has before.

I didn't tear this page from the magazine because I could imagine myself looking or dressing like this woman someday, or embodying the less obvious qualities she and her star pendant expressed to me. I tore it out because I thought she looked like my heroine alter ego.

I never had any expectation that I would -- or could -- be any part of the life my alter ego lived. I didn't even try, because the context of that fantasy was so far removed from real life there was no point.

And so I grew up without the slightest genuine investment in my own future. I looked out for my immediate needs: getting the expected education, holding jobs that would keep me in food and shelter and books, and never thought about what the consequences of those choices (and non-choices) would be in the years ahead.

I never tore pictures from magazines because they looked like how *I* wanted to look, or to give me ideas about what *I* could do or be in this life. It was always about her, the other me who had the life I wanted -- but which was so safely removed from reality I never had to risk anything to try to achieve it.

Maybe that's too hard on myself. Maybe I truly did not see any options before me that ignited my passions, and so I imagined a passionate life in a place where those options did exist. The end result is the same: my current life, which is only just beginning to become something that I can be proud of, someplace where my true self is beginning to be expressed outwardly instead of hidden in code in secret notebooks.

I realized recently that one of the things I need to surrender is my heroine alter ego. I don't think about her much anymore, but she is the product of my fundamental belief that I could not do or be who I truly wanted to be in this lifetime. She has to go, to make room for the authentic self which I am finally daring to express.

Comments

[rebeccax.livejournal.com]

Wow.

And bravo.

[blessed-harlot.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of this I feel I could have written myself. I still have some anger about time wasted splitting myself off from my passions.

But I'm also aware of the "treasure box" nature of my actions, that they were coping mechanisms to keep something safe from forces that felt too overwhelming to face. I have alter egos that have given me a lifeline to certain truths that were too strong to die, even when they didn't have the support to thrive, even through the worst storms. They lived on in some other form.

You are expressing rare courage in embracing those passions, and releasing poor substitutions for them.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I have alter egos that have given me a lifeline to certain truths that were too strong to die.

Yes, I resonate with this. I think that alter ego kept something in my alive until I reached the place where I was able to embrace and express it.

[queenofhalves]

insightful.

[gothic-coop.livejournal.com]

You are becoming your heroine alter ego.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the supportive thought, but no -- who I am becoming is not my heroine alter-ego. This is a very different path. I am becoming more heroic, perhaps, but I'm not becoming her.

[coen.livejournal.com]

I am not sure, but it seems to me you are being a bit hard on yourself.

You must get rid of your alter ego in order for the real you to grow?
Maybe it would be easier if you put it the other way around. You allow the real you to grow (as you already do) and you alter ego will fade away as she is no longer needed.
So you don't have to kill her off, you just let her go.

[qos.livejournal.com]

"Letting her go" is/was the intention. I need to reclaim the energy and focus I've invested in her.

[qos.livejournal.com]

Not really.
I'm becoming more of a heroine, but I'm not becoming her, not doing what she did or taking on her roles.

I appreciate the spirit of the affirmation, however.