haunted by clones of myself

i miss her and i wonder if she’s proud of me

Tonight as I was getting ready for the evening I put on a combination of clothing that had once been my go-to everyday outfit. I didn’t realize how long it had been since I wore these two pieces together or that I associated them with a very specific time in my life. And more specifically a time that has passed. As I stared at myself in the mirror I felt as though I was wearing a costume of a version of myself that no longer exists. I look at myself and suddenly it is 

the summer of 2021: I’m working at a local coffee shop, a job I often hated at the time but would come to miss and grow nostalgic for as the years pass. I’m surrounded by many people I love, many of whom I thought I’d be close to forever, but don’t talk to anymore. At the end of that summer I would cast a girl to play my best friend in a short film, and who would quickly become my best friend off screen as well. Despite my constant moving from city to city, we still talk nearly everyday. In this summer I am madly in love with a person who I had spent the last year and a half loving, a person I naively thought I’d grow old with, a person I’d frequently talk about our future daughter with, and whom I would spend the next 3 years with until our inevitable break up this past July. We’re on good terms I guess, but he stopped answering my calls. I was miserable then, too busy thinking of the future. But now I look back and can’t help but romanticize the past. A bad habit of mine.

I scroll back in my camera roll to find a photo from this time of me wearing the outfit I am currently wearing. It takes jarringly long to scroll back to the photo I am looking for, and I am struck with a sobering pang to my chest as my finger exhaustingly motions through years of memories. Has so much time really passed? “Eau D’Bedroom Dancing” by Le Tigre starts playing in my headphones. Kathleen Hanna in my ear melodically saying “There's no time for me to act mature. The only words I know are "more", "more" and "more"” I feel like an imposter, and so I decide I have to change the skirt. I swap out the high-waisted American Apparel black pleated skirt that I’ve owned since 2016 for a low rise gray mini skirt that I thrifted last summer and hacked the bottom off of to make even shorter, the pleated edges now raw and frayed. I figure the skirt change alone is enough to make me feel less like an imposter of myself. 

As I walk down Sunset Blvd, I can’t help but still feel unlike myself. I’m wearing two waist chains, one of them a rosary that feels suddenly all too heavy and loud with every step I take. I remove it, leaving the singular waist chain I wear on an almost daily basis. I sit at a local bar I’ve become a regular at in the past month, lost in thought. I’ve found comfort in the bartender here, he greets me like a friend and buzzes around the bar ensuring my glass is full. His presence makes me feel less guilty about being alone at a bar on a Friday night. I feel particularly lonely on this night as I contemplate the way in which I repeatedly uproot my life in a search to find where I “belong” though in doing so routinely isolate myself. I’m lost in thought when a person beside me mumbles something in my ear, “Huh?” I ask, snapping out of my internal monologue, and making eye contact with the man beside me. I’m bad at guessing ages but he’s visibly older than me, probably in his mid 30s. 
“I said, doesn’t that take you back?” he repeated, but noticed the look of confusion on my face “Those people over there said ‘let's do a round of shots’ doesn’t that take you back? I haven’t heard that since my college days.” I wince as the words escape his mouth, how old does he think I am? I respond with my age. 
“Oh.” he simply responds. 
People have always guessed I am older than my real age, usually I am flattered but for some reason the comment gets to me and I begin to question if the vintage silk shirt I’m wearing is making me look older. I remove the blouse, opting to just wear the lace camisole I have on underneath. I shove the blouse in my bag, and with this action I have successfully shed all of the pieces of my outfit that had once belonged to my former self. I am now left with an outfit that I find myself wearing often. One that feels unique to the current iteration of myself. One that will likewise feel like a costume to me in a couple of years.