Along with this malleability came a feeling of disconnect.  I was constantly shifting shape to please others, to make their lives easier, but it required self-denial on a grand scale.  My life—my real feelings, thoughts, beliefs, wishes, and desires—turned inward.  They became nightmares and stories that I told myself.  Barbies, for me, weren’t about what my body wasn’t or couldn’t be, they were actors in a life story that I didn’t allow myself.  I devoured books, taking the subject position in every one.  In order to be myself, what I considered my truer self, I became someone else.       

My favorite books were fantasy, where the impossible could and did happen, or ones like The Diary of Anne Frank where the amount of human suffering threatened to block out the light of day.  Triumph over trouble was my favorite theme and kids were the heroes.  I disappeared into those books.  Through those stories, I had a voice, even though it wasn’t really mine.

© Salahub 2003