Snakeskin

I have spent countless nights thinking about many of the things I ever said or did that were self-centered, unthoughtful, or toxic or problematic. There are people I have mistreated, especially at times when I didn’t know or like my own self very much. Now that I’ve matured and learned some life lessons (since my early 20’s, at the ripe age of 28), I often worry about how many people probably see me as the mistakes I made when they knew me in the past and not the person I’ve grown into since then. I know that anxiety is the culprit of these obsessions and fears. In reality, I know that people aren’t spending nearly as much time thinking about me as I spend wondering if they’re thinking about me. I know that in part, the things I worry others are thinking about me are actually projections of what I think about myself deep down or what I fear that I am.

Some of these narratives were true at one time, and others have always been falsehoods that I nevertheless unhealthily obsess over the way you pick at a spot on your face that makes the blemish worse than it was before. What would happen if I let go of the fear of what people think of me? To put so much energy into something I have no control over does nothing but make myself miserable. It is unproductive. However, to not care so much about what people think is a cliché that’s easier said than done. I don’t think not caring is the answer. Perhaps it’s more realistic to accept that I may care what others think, but I have to accept that there are subjective realities outside my understanding of myself that I have no control over, and I cannot allow the futile wishing that I could somehow control these narratives keep me from living in my own truth. The thought of this radical acceptance for the self, to just let go of that anxiety and shame, to rebuke them, literally and viscerally makes my stomach flip. It seems like a faint and hazy illustration of something that hasn’t manifested in my sight yet, but is on the horizon, like how your vision is blurry when you first wake up in the morning but you know everything will be clearer in a few moments. It will happen soon.

A part of it also has to do with letting go of the shame and guilt that keep these anxieties shackled to my mind. Others may not forgive me for how I have acted or treated them in the past, but I can forgive myself and take action to do better in the future. I want to be able to let go of all the former versions of myself that I’m holding onto.

My friend X makes beautiful art by preserving natural artifacts in glass or resin. One of their pieces holds a shedded snakeskin encased with dried flowers. The piece itself is gorgeous, but it makes me think symbolically of how we preserve old versions of ourselves in metaphorical glass that would eventually disintegrate if we instead left them on the ground to decompose. Preserved snakeskin is eerily stunning, but preserved pasts encased in anxiety and shame are something that ought to be shattered and left behind. We can keep the lessons we’ve learned and let go of the guilt and shame that we carry along with them. I dare you to shed your skin.