The Stranger In Me

The cold breeze through my bedroom window woke me up and I couldn't fall asleep anymore. I was back in the room that I had called my own for the last 13years. This room has seen the best and worst of me. It holds secrets that have never shared with anyone except God himself.

However it felt different as if I was a stranger in it. It didn’t warm up as it used to, the walls didn’t light up, and the scent wasn’t there. Something was wrong and I couldn’t point a finger to it. I woke up and immediately rushed to open the closets but they were empty.

I stared into the mirror but the reflection that stared back at me wasn’t me. The room that I knew as my little heaven had turned into a complete stranger. What had happen to my little heaven? I crawled into the corner that always gave me a hug whenever the world disappointed me. That corner also shrugged away and gave me it back.

Everything I held close to me had left and now I was all by myself. How did I get here? What did I do wrong? Did I miss calculate? Was I too occupied with things that didn’t matter to me and neglected the people that did?

When I looked down, I was standing in a circle in the middle of the room and for a moment there it felt like I was standing to audition for a role in a movie that was based on me. I didn’t know myself anymore. My body had become a foreign object to myself. What had happened to me, myself and I?

I was starring in a movie that the script wasn’t about me but about someone impersonating me. My life had completely changed and saw were my surroundings. I had to make a drastic decision either to take back my life and live it for me or let the impersonator keep doing what she was doing.

I sat on the floor in that same circle as I pounded on the right decision to make. In both decisions I was going to gain and lose at the same time but what was to be considered was whether it was going to make me happy. Happiness was the bargaining power to making the right decision.

‘What have you become?’ ‘I don’t think I know you anymore?’ These words rang in my head like a hammer hitting a nail. My tears flowed down like a river stream, my heart was in pain and all I could think of was how did I get here.

My eyes wandered around the room hoping to see something familiar but there was nothing. At that moment I realized I needed to make that drastic decision. I stood up, wiped my tears and put on a courageous face ready to face the biggest monster that had impersonated me.

Decisions are the hardest things to make because one is never sure if you’ve made the right one but this time round I trusted my heart and went with what my instincts were telling me. The circle started becoming smaller, the room lightened up, the warmth was back and the gentle sweet clover scent filled the room bringing with it the calming, relaxing and uplifting feeling.

With just a choice and decision I managed to get my life back. Sadly it didn’t start playing from where I had pause it but I am ready for the challenge to build my life, learn from my mistakes and move on without looking back.

“We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.” Lyndon B. Johnson