I got invited out to a dance class a couple weeks ago. It was the first time I’ve ever done a lesson where choreography was taught to you and you were expected to perform at the end of class. While I got most of it, I definitely didn’t hit every single move. At the end of class we were asked for volunteers to be videoed; the girls that invited me both volunteered. One of them inquired why I didn’t participate, (the instructor had kept glancing at me hopefully); I said I didn’t like being videoed. I watched them dance and while I delighted in their joy, I felt unease about what I had said. It wasn’t a lie, but the truth feels a lot more complicated to explain.

I LOVE YOU

I LOVE YOU

I LOVE YOU

That’s how my mother signs everything. Her tagline on posts and photos, her signature in emails, and her last words in any text. She broadcasts those words to all the world and scatters them at complete strangers. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but when someone makes Love their merchandise, it no longer means it’s offered willingly.

I started photographing her from a young age. I had a knack for it and she was a bodybuilder, so I was her built in photographer. I got so good at posing her that she would always ask me to take her photo and only used professionals when she had a bargain. Every single family photo became an advertisement, a means to gain sympathy or empathy on social media for whatever new bullshit she was pushing out on the market. I stopped liking photos.

No one ever hit on me at school (not that I cared). But it didn’t quite feel good when my fellow 9th grader came up to me and said “look out, I’m going to be your stepdad soon. Your mom’s so hot”. I almost kicked that one in the place where it counts (wearing steel toe boots mind you) but pulled back at the last second before he even had a chance to cover. He avoided me for the rest of high school. Later that day, my mother said I was really starting to look like her Mini-Me. I started avoiding mirrors after that.

My sister and I were songbirds. We sang everything all the time, anywhere. We knew every single jingle of all the commercials; we knew the radio snippets in between songs and whatever melody came on, we knew that too. We would take silly videos whenever we dressed up and sang like we were princesses. If my mother happened upon us and we seemed marketable, she would make us repeat whatever we were doing until it was up to her satisfaction. I stopped taking videos of joyful moments.

When I ran away, I couldn’t take anything with me except some clothes. So all of my memories, all of my things from childhood, even my ornaments collected from every year of my life I was not allowed to have. I don’t miss most of it but sometimes I look at myself and I just don’t know or remember who I am. I don’t remember the things I wrote when I was 6, my favorite toys when I was 10. Did I write? I know I read a lot but I don’t remember what. The things I was certain I liked are now things I’m not so sure I adore. I look at myself, and I see a Mini-Me; an extension of my narcissistic mother. I see an Imposter.

I’m working on finding myself; remembering my individuality. But I’m also someone who couldn’t even decide what to do with my face unless I copied my mirror image twin. It was so bad that even after being estranged for three years as adults, the first time I saw her my brain went “My face..not my face..my face! Not my face.” I suppose in some ways it’s good she and I live far apart, it gives me a chance to find myself, even if it’s drastically uncomfortable.

But there’s something I’ve always loved and I’ve kept it close to my heart. The Circus. I always told myself if I had found it sooner I would have become an aerialist. Now I’m taking a class and while I’m not sure what to expect, it’s a fulfillment of a lifelong dream. A step in the right direction, and I know that this, this is for me.

Love, Bug