On Moths and Middle School

AUGUST 2023

The other week I reunited with several adults who have known me throughout my entire upbringing, ones who can genuinely say that they held me as a baby. It’s bittersweet being the one growing up, and seeing everyone get older around you, and it’s exceptionally uncomfortable to reflect upon the idea that these people have known you through every phase. Though I have tried to forget the middle school Dr. Who obsession and the senior year yellow-haired anarchist times of my life, I know that they’ll always remember.

When I saw all of these people, they told me that they were relieved that I had grown up to be a semi-average looking, poised, young woman. A “moth that turned into a butterfly”. I accepted these compliments but only after the appropriate amount of deflection, and expressed my gratitude at their observations. But it made me a little bit sad, and I feel guilty for feeling that way.

When I look back at my younger self I see the “moth” that they were referring to. I see an unconfident girl who hid behind her unkempt hair and wore the same hoodie every day (pleased to announce that I now alternate between three hoodies and a flannel). I see a girl who had a massive tooth gap that she could shoot water through and sad eyes from another interstate move. She was a girl who just wanted to be invisible because she felt invisible. A wallflower-- something that I still am. Thank you Stephen Chobosky for helping me come to terms with that. I was never the smart one or the funny one, and certainly not the pretty one, just the shy and kind of odd one. In these vulnerable years, I was just trying to navigate life and more importantly, survive the waters of my own mind and the mind of the world around me. My awkwardness and experimentation were certainly products of that. They were something that I owned, something that was uniquely and unmistakably mine, and one of my only defenses against the confusion that I often faced.

So, I hate to think poorly of that girl, even though I frequently do. I hate to add validity to her fears of being unlovable, because if her future self cannot love her, then who can? Who will? I have grown into the woman who she wanted me to be, and I am still actively working on healing her, healing me, and every version of myself in between. I do not want to think of her as a moth, but as a necessary rough draft. Maybe a caterpillar. The reason that I am who I am today.

I am grateful for the grown-ups in my life who have continuously rooted for me and still loved me unconditionally through these awkward, formative, years. But it didn’t feel great to hear about what they really thought of my younger self. I guess I just feel like she is very much a part of me, somewhere deep inside, and I guess I feel hurt and also a little bit embarrassed when I am reminded of her and congratulated on the fact that I am so different today. I’m really not. She was still me, and I am still her. And I worry about what I’ll think in ten years, twenty years looking back on who I am today. I hope that I become kinder to myself, and I hope I don’t forget how hard I am trying.

For what it’s worth, I still think that I am very much a moth. And sometimes I worry that is all that I am meant to be. But moths deserve grace too, and I deserve grace too.