today it’s 2010 I just came home from school and I look into the mirror and I wish to be you today it’s 2014 I’m sitting in class and I’m starting to have anxiety but they say that the feeling will pass today it’s 2018 I’m sobbing on the floor I thought I was enough but he said he didn’t love me...anymore today it’s february 4th twenty twenty three and I can't help but think of all the versions I'll never be
Gooooood afternoon everybody, I’ve been finally getting back into journaling as of late and I’ve been going back and reading certain entries to myself. I put myself back in the shoes of who I was then and walk around her mind. I’ve always been very conscious of the severity of making a decision. The weight that is held with a simple choice. My life would be completely different if my parents hadn’t decided to move from Mexico to California. Who would I be if I had stayed in my parents hometown when we momentarily moved back for a year? What would I like? Would I be married by now? Have children? Would I be premed? Would I have my own little floral shop or cafe.
Would I be happier?
Sadder?
Less anxious?
More fulfilled?
We all have things we think what if about. Those moments in our life where we wonder what would have changed if we had decided differently.
I’ve always been a fearful person because of this, and if I were to psychoanalyze myself maybe this is the reason I’m so anxious sometimes too. I saw a quote once that said “Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens because of you” and I damn near fell out of my chair when I read that. Again, I don’t think this is valid when shitty things happen. Because sometime shitty things just happen and who knows why they do. But me reading and hearing that as someone who in a way had gone through life acting passively, not believing that my mind had any weight, but simply holding the hand of anything that happened and letting it lead me to wherever it was going, it forced me to take a step back. This is a love letter and a breakup song to all of the versions of myself that I could have become, but for one reason or another, I didn’t.
For example, I chose to go to Yale for undergrad, but I was also considering attending UCLA. Sometimes I think about the life I could’ve lived if I had never left California. Would I have the same hobbies I do now? Would I have more or less friends? Would it have changed some fundamental part of me that would have not made me the Celia I am today.
What if I had stayed in a previous relationship and married that person? Would we have lived happily ever after or would we have gotten a divorce less than a year in (probably the latter).
Our life is composed of choices. Who we are is a combination of everyone we have ever been. Maybe you stopped singing in the car because someone once said you were too loud (I hope you become louder instead). Maybe you fold your clothes a certain way because that’s how someone taught you a long time ago.
There’s so many versions of ourselves that will never get to exist. Because the second we make a decision, there is an unavoidable loss that occurs. I will never know the version of myself that never left California because I myself, did not stay.
It’s too late to change the past.
This might be weird to say but sometimes I feel this pressure to be doing something amazing with my life or else I’m letting those versions of me down. Their experiences carefully paved the path to where I am now. They don’t get to live in Los Angeles or go to film school or travel abroad because my decisions brought me here. I do sometimes wonder what the “right” path is, and just like there’s so many versions of myself that will never get to exist, there’s also so many versions of myself yet to come, right?
There’s the version of me who will be an aunt someday and be surrounded by chants of “Tía Celia! Tía Celia!”. There will be a version that goes to medical school and becomes “Doctora Celia”. In the same way that one day I’ll be an amazing wife and an amazing mom and all these other things that haven’t even happened yet. It’s scary and overwhelming and completely insane to think about how my choices today could affect a version of me ten years from now.
That’s a LOT of pressure.
So in my head I collapse it. I think of an accordion. Every version I have ever been and will ever be is on a different part of the accordion. But if you want to see who I am, you press it together. It all becomes one. I am the combination of it all, and how painfully beautiful that is. What a burden it is to be acutely aware of the role(s) we play in our own lives.
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so much of an overthinker, that I could just make a decision with no regard for what could happen. But then I wouldn’t be me. And in the same way that I overthink every decision I make, I think of the people around me. You don’t have to ask me to refill the water filter because I think of how you might need water later and I don’t want you to find it empty. You don’t have to tell me to airdrop the pictures to my phone while you’re driving because I know that you’re almost out of storage and I should take advantage of the fact that we’re sitting right next to each other for a long drive. I hate being an overthinker, but I love being who I am. Considerate and kind and way too loud. Poetic and scientific and the type of person that thinks of your laugh as their favorite sound. Not everyone is like this, we are shaped by who we have been with, shaped by where we have been to, and shaped by all the versions of ourselves that will never get to exist.
I used to be afraid that I’d regret certain decisions that I’ve made. So in my head I’d go back and forth a lot, played a round of tennis with my thoughts until I was completely exhausted. I almost wanted someone else to make a decision for me. I wanted to be dumped so that I didn’t have to question whether I had made the right decision. It was easier this way, like I said, I wanted to live life passively, ride in the passenger seat of my story. Let someone else drive. But life doesn’t work like that.
If I was born screaming, why would I ever silence myself?
I don’t know who those lost versions of me would have become, but I know who I am, and I love her deeply, and you know what?
That’s enough for me.
Con amor siempre,
Celia <333
P.S. I’M GONNA RELEASE MY BOOK THIS MONTH!!!! Here’s a little sneak preview :’)
(rip my heart out why don’t you!)
Also, I’ve been very active on tiktok (@powerhouseofthecel) so go check out some of those new poems (and some old) if you haven’t already! WE HIT 250k!! What an insane thing to say. I love you all so much and I wish you a very happy weekend!!!!
these entries ALWAYS make my day <3
The most beautiful thing I read today!!!!