Rapunzel

Dear Mom,

I’ve never told you who I really am.

When I was younger, you told me who I was, and I believed you for so long. Everyone had a pigeonhole in our family: the oldest, the middle, the youngest, the rebel, the loner. And me, I was the broken one. The fragile one. The one who couldn’t be expected to do what other people did, because I couldn’t handle it. The one who lived in a fantasy world and couldn’t understand reality.

I never told you then that I was strong and smart and tough enough to bend under the blows of the world, then rise to my feet unbroken. I didn’t even tell myself, because I believed you when you said I wasn’t. I never told you that I did see reality, and it was so much uglier than you ever knew that my fantasy world was better; the inside of my head was the only place that was safe. I never told you how much I wanted the company of friends, of other kids to play with, other girls to giggle and gossip with, of parties and games and sleepovers. I couldn’t tell you how lonely I was, in my room full of books and my imaginary castles of dragons and princesses. You were too busy telling me.

For thirty years, you told me who I was, and you told the world who I was, and I believed you. I limped through the world, certain that I needed to run away when life got hard because I couldn’t bear the stress of seeing things through. It hurt, and the pain was proof that I couldn’t bear it, right? For thirty years, I sat in my tower and read my books and lowered my hair in hopes that someone would climb up, because I was afraid to go down to them.

I was lucky. I heard other voices, voices who didn’t know that I was broken and fragile, so they told me that I was strong. That I was brave. That I could do anything, be anything. I heard voices that told me I wasn’t a princess in a tower, I was a superhero. And when life found me and piled so much weight on me that I thought I would be crushed, I heard my own voice. I told myself that I could stand, just for one more minute. I could stand for another minute, and another, and another. I told myself I could lift that weight and carry it. I told myself who I was. I told myself who I was going to be.

But I never told you who I was.

I walked, and the scars pulled, and I heard your voice telling me I was the broken one, and I kept walking. I ran, and my breath felt like a knife in my lungs, and I heard your voice telling me I was fragile and couldn’t do it, and I kept running. I danced, and the music drowned out your voice and other people danced around me. It was scary and beautiful. Sometimes I stumbled, but I kept dancing anyway.

I threw off my burden, and I picked up other burdens and carried them until I could put them down. Each one was lighter than the one before, because I told myself I could do it.

But I never told you.

Still you look at me, and see the weak child of long ago, hiding away in my castle with my books and my daydreams, and you tell me who you think I am. Because I never told you.

I am not Rapunzel any more.