Day 14 – Fallen
by Zoeyjane
A hero who has let you down
I’ve never really had a hero. I’ve idolized quite a few, while still able to recognized their less-than-perfect facets, but put them on hero-level? No.
The closest to a hero I’ve ever had was a person I thought I would meet one day.
She was married, and worked hard at a career that really put meaning and kindness out in the world. She loved her children, both of them, equally, but completely differently – she recognized that they weren’t the same person, with different outsides, and that they each had their own essences, and things that made them special in their own ways.
She had a husband that meant the world to her, but wasn’t all there was in the world. And each of her friendships felt as close as two souls could exist, without becoming parasitic or codependant. Every one of them.
Her reliability was rock-solid and her intelligence, whether academic or emotional, was always sound. She was ruled by nothing more than her own morals, a wish to be the best person she could be and a course that she had set forth on from the tender age of 15.
She found herself looking in the mirror at 30, worshipping the lines on each side of her mouth and the crinkles that erupted every time she smiled, because they were evidence that she smiled a lot. She didn’t hate anything – any person, body part, historical reference.
She was educated and cultured and financially stable – but she didn’t see any of these things as definitions of herself. She quite simply was happy to exist in her life, with her family and the career that made her thankful to be worthy of it.
She drove through books and chocolate like the Indy 500, but she had learned over the years to savour them as well. Intimacy came so naturally as to make some people uncomfortable and others, thankful for her presence. She stood up for herself, her rights, her lifestyle and for that of every person that surrounded her – and for the people whose voice had been silenced, who couldn’t stand up for themselves.
This woman. She’s as close to a hero as I’ve ever had.
She wasn’t perfect, but she was good enough and righteous in a way that had nothing to do with pulpits. This woman was meant to leave a mark deep enough to erase scars. This woman was everything to me.
She never sat next to the person she loved and felt alone. She never looked at her children and wondered what wrongs she had committed that she didn’t know about. She didn’t have regrets, or instead of them, more life lessons than anyone should ever have studied. She didn’t seek out maternal figures because she had her own, strong, inner compass. She didn’t waver, based on how much easier it might be to just make everyone else happy instead of herself. She didn’t engage in self-blame, manipulation, pity, emotional berating. She just lived and experienced everything there was to do with living, without letting it stop her from continuing on.
This woman was never going to fight with logic daily, caught between what she knew was true and what she saw. This woman shopped at the Gap, but didn’t have a panic attack when this is what looked back at her from the mirror, knowing that her mind was playing tricks on her and she should just buy the fucking jeans because she didn’t look like a disgusting freak. This woman would have bought the jeans, but I couldn’t. I had to leave, my heart beating too fast, with watery eyes and breath caught in my throat.
This woman was the me I was supposed to be in two months, at 30. Free of the remnants of an eating disorder, abusive childhood, chemical imbalances and what-ifs. This woman kind of let me down, by never becoming, outside of my mind.
Next: Someone or something you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it [or them]. {link}
