I was scrolling through some old photographs this morning and I came across memories from university days. While usually I would notice the changes in my body and everything else that is visible to the eyes, this time there were other changes that struck me harder. I caught myself staring at her and her looking back at me with a question: How did we even get here?

The answer encompasses experiences, changes, attempts to let go, acceptance, some wisdom, and essentially life itself.

The most prominent change I noticed was the twinkle in her eyes, which has dimmed over the last few years, and I am constantly trying to rediscover it. She was more of a woman than I am in this transient womanhood. She was louder in her existence than I have been lately. Somewhere along the way, I have intentionally silenced her in an effort to fit into a notion of womanhood.

In the book Why Women Grow, Alice Vincent beautifully addresses the new and uneasy loneliness felt each day by being extracted from a girlhood one has been comfortable in even though we have outgrown it. For some of us this holds true, but here I am reaching out to my girlhood to help me show up as ‘her version of myself’ in this muddled reality. My attempts to dumb her down may have worked temporarily but in this uneasy loneliness, I feel a nudge to show up as her rusty self. She may not have the wisdom but she sure can lead me to the glimmer.