the question looms over me like everything did when i was a little kid. little six year old me is staring up with her little blue eyes and little white teeth and little pink bow in her hair, and everything feels gigantic. and when you’re six years old, it feels like everything’s gonna stay like this forever. the chairs are always going to be to big you feel like they swallow you whole every time you sit down. the door handles are always going to require tippy-toes to reach. you’ll always have to jump on the counter to reach the top cabinet in the kitchen to find the paper plates that are shaped like animals.
but then you get older. you get taller and longer and stronger. the chairs become smaller and the door handles become lower and the cabinets become easier to reach (although if you’re my size you definitely still have to hop onto the counter to find the honey in the back of the cabinet).
nothing got smaller. you just got bigger.
you grew.
i grew.
and maybe one day i’ll grow even more, and the question that makes my heart speed up every time i look at it won’t tower over me anymore. maybe i’ll become even bigger and stronger, and asking what i want to be remembered for will be as trivial as my birthday or my favorite color.
but until then, i have to sit on the question like the big chairs and think about it. what do i want to be remembered for? do i want to be remembered for one of the many facets of my personality? do i want to be remembered for my wit or my sense of humor? or do i want to be remembered for the aesthetics? do i want people to remember my laugh or my sense of style? or do i want to be remembered for my accomplishments? do i want to be remembered for the impact the books i hope to write will have on the world or the way my poetry moved people?
i don’t know what i want to be remembered for quite yet, and i don’t know what version of me is going to be remembered when there’s no me to be memorable anymore. maybe 15-year-old me is the me remembered by friends i made at art camp. maybe 18-year-old me will be the me remembered by the msa class of 2020. maybe 30-something-year-old me will be remembered by the people who read my books.
who i want to be and who i am now are two sides of the same coin, but i’m learning to let the space between them inspire me, not terrify me.
