Metamorphosis
The word “metamorphosis” means a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means. A noun that defined my pandemic experience. My metamorphosis happened suddenly. However, it was no coincidence. The universe leads us down a rabbit hole and it is up to us to make sense of it all.
When I was fourteen, I hung out with “those girls”. Those girls who were volatile. Those girls who thrived off of instability. I hung out with those girls who swore when talking to teachers, smoked their older sisters' roaches and juuls, and spent their days once school let out lusting after older boys. Despite my mother’s watchful eye, I was close to becoming one of “those girls”. I spent my days in after school theater lusting after an older boy who spent his days after school before basketball practice eyeing me. The same older boy who I would spend the next two years trying to convince myself despite it all, he wasn’t that terrible of a person. The same older boy I spent the next two years trying to get to like me, then another year trying to get him away from me.
From eighth grade to the middle of my freshman year, I struggled to find my place in the world. Unbeknownst to me, I was on the precipice of my metamorphosis. I was bright but I was unsure of what to do with my life. My freshman year I told myself that if high school got any harder, I would abandon my lifelong dream of going to college, and do something else. A stripper, a hairstylist, an influencer, maybe a rapper's girlfriend. I knew that eventually I would grow into my features and my curves would fully come in. With that would come more popularity. I was constantly on social media, documenting my life in the same way I saw my favorite influencers documenting theirs. People were invested in my life and I felt proud knowing that whatever I did was talked about and remembered.
It was good until it wasn’t. During the very start of quarantine, a private story I posted had gotten back to one of “those girls”. I didn’t hang out with her too much but we knew each other because by that time I was halfway into being one of “those girls”. My parents watched as I was in agony. I was ridiculed on social media and received cruel messages. Most infamously though, a boy in the grade above me who had once called me “so fine” personally let me know how he hoped that his friends would drag me out of my house and rape me. Following my mother’s orders, I stayed off of social media. During that time I felt the most alone. I hardly had any friends, I was stuck at home, and at the time, it felt as if the whole world was against me.
This single event changed the entire trajectory of my life. Now off of social media, I had time to sit with myself. Suddenly, I found myself doing the things that I once loved. I exercised, read books, wrote poetry, and even listened to my beloved Ted Talks. This was my metamorphosis. Despite the beginning and middle of quarantine being rocky, by the end I was transformed. I did a complete 180. It was incredibly hard but I rebranded into the Claire I am today. I thrusted myself back into productive activities, forced myself to be engaged in classes, and relearned how to make new friends. People whom I was once so close with called this new life of mine boring. To me, it was everything I had ever wanted. My metamorphosis transformed me into a confident young woman who felt like her life had purpose. My pandemic metamorphosis revealed to me that although your origin story doesn’t determine your success, it never leaves your soul.
There are still remnants of my old skin. It’s in the push up bra with sparkly straps buried in the back of my drawer that I begged my mother to buy me so that I could be like “those girls”. It’s underneath my confident gray bedroom walls, an uncertain daffodil yellow that was in the background of many social media posts. I feel its hot twinges when I go to the mall and see “those girls”. Their young faces covered in makeup and their bodies adorned with playboy bunny belly rings, judging my fresh face and sweatpants. Awkwardness punches me in the gut when we reach for the same pair of underwear in Victoria’s Secret. We lock eyes and I smile as I resist the urge to say “I used to be you. Don’t rush, you still have time”.
