Who Am I?
Part Three: The Girl Who Was Everyone Else First
The only time I am fully myself is when there is no one around to perform for.
When no one is looking, I am the boldest version of myself. The moment someone walks in, it begins.
The Performance.
I don’t really remember when it started. But I know what it feels like now.
I know I do well in the rooms I am part of. I bring value. I create impact. But I am almost always nervous and unsure. And the only reason I ever know I did well is because I see the admiration and wonder in the eyes of people, I see the results.
I have never once felt it from within.
Naturally, over the years, I have become a very good observer. I had to be. So that I can walk into any room and within minutes know exactly what is expected of me. The energy, the tone, the version of myself that will land best here.
Get Potential&Panic’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
And then I deliver her.
The girl people think, somehow fits right in everywhere.
I don’t know if that’s a skill or a habit I can’t break. Somewhere between the two, I even stopped questioning it.
But life happened recently. And what slowly unfurled wasn’t the performance, it was what the performance was hiding.
The loneliness that comes with it.
Because the problem with performing for every room is that eventually you forget which version of you isn’t a performance at all.
I can’t help but think that I don’t have a single person in the world who knows what I am really like. What I think. How I operate. The unedited, unperforming, fully herself version of me.
And now, I seem to have forgotten her too.
The original me. And as a 25 year old, that’s just sad.
And so here I am. Anonymous. Writing to strangers on the internet. Because maybe someone out there gets an inkling to who I really am. Maybe they can create a version of me in their heads which is closer to the person that I seem to have lost touch with.
I haven’t given up on her. Not yet.
So, I will let you know if I find her.
