NEW CLOTHES FOR A
NEW
LAURA.
On that note, this weekend I feel like I noticed my high school self coming out again. I have been working so hard to suppress her. I have been uncomfortable being at home because I haven't known how to harmonize New Laura and whatever came before that. Whether it was being upset over something, or not being skinny, or having a bad haircut, or wearing the wrong clothes, or being self-righteous. This weekend I re-found the parts I forgot about.. the good parts, the ones that didn't have the chance to creep back in because I actively shut everything - EVERYTHING - out. I reread some of my old journals. This time, instead of shamefully reading the entries in which I lamented heartbreak, I enjoyed my New Years' 2004 entry. My fifteen-year-old assessments of my life, my friends, and my hopes for the near future was way less self-involved and more articulate than I ever would have thought.
I looked through pictures. The smile that embarrassed me before because it spread all over my face, just like Georgia describes hers in the Angus books, meant that I was having the greatest belly laugh just as the picture was being taken. When Mom told me to get the nice linen shirt in the more exciting blue, rather than the more flattering brown, I remembered how I used to buy clothes because I liked them. Because I wanted to wear them. Not because I thought they looked particularly good or flattering.
I miss that. I never give myself credit for the Me I was before college, but I am recultivating her as of Right Now.
Because she was a lot of fun. And more mature in a lot of ways than I give her credit for anymore.
So maybe this should be:
NEW CLOTHES FOR A
RE-NEW-ED
LAU
RA.
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