When I was born, I was nothing.
A soul, maybe, but nothing more. No physical body to speak of. I was nothing.
At four years of age, someone said I had soft brown hair. And suddenly, it was there: falling through my fingers, and twisting around my knuckles when I was anxious. It was a curtain to hide behind when I was scared. Something for the wind to toss during autumn. Something for me to cut, and shape, and wear like a crown. I was brown hair.
At six years of age, someone pointed out the freckles that lay scattered across my arm. And then suddenly I was freckles: constellations on my skin, follow-the-dot drawings over my canvas. I traced their shapes with my fingers, mesmerized at the way they moved over my skin as I grew and grew. They varied in color, in shape. Like stars. Like planets. I was brown hair and freckles.
When I turned ten, someone younger than me asked why I had such big buck teeth. And then I was the teeth that peeked from under my lips even when I wasn’t smiling. I was toothy grins that always felt a little out of place, and I was the habit of covering my mouth when I grinned with happiness. I was the air that whistled through them, the way my orthodontist frowned at them as if they were a beast to be conquered. I was brown hair and freckles and big, big, obvious buck teeth.
When I was twelve, people began to notice that I was taller than the rest. And suddenly I was tall: a giant in a crowded room, a person, quite literally, with my head in the clouds. And I could stretch high enough to touch the moon, and I swear that I did sometimes. Sometimes my brain had so much fun up with the moon, and the stars, that coming to Earth was nearly impossible. And I smiled my toothy grin from up high, because now I was tall. I was brown hair and freckles and big, big, obvious buck teeth, and the giant in the room, always.
When I was thirteen, someone pointed out the way I breathed whenever an anxiety attack ran its cold, cold fingers over my neck. They asked why I breathed so deeply, so longingly. And suddenly I was a sigh. My words were sighs, my eyes were sighs, I was a sigh. And when the cold whiteness of hospital sheets seemed darker than my pale skin, I sighed. And then I was brown hair and freckles and big, big, obvious buck teeth, and the giant in the room, and the girl who could not breathe.
When I was fifteen, someone said they liked the color of my eyes. And then I was those eyes, blinking from the void that is splattered with freckles and framed with soft brown hair. Green with hints of blue, blue with hints of green. I blinked, and looked, and saw. The weight on my chest lessened because, hey, someone liked how my eyes looked. And then I was brown hair and freckles and big, big obvious buck teeth, and the giant in the room, and the girl who could not breathe, and big green-blue eyes.
And then I was just those things people had said. And my most noticeable features were the ones I hated: my size, my teeth, my inability to breathe. But I fought against it, slowly, even though I did not know it.
“My buck teeth are beautiful,” I whispered with a lisp, and suddenly it was true. They are beautiful. “I’m tall because I’m beautiful,” I whispered again, and suddenly that was true too. It took me nearly two decades to discover that I could create myself just as well as others could. And though the words may come slowly at times, or not at all, I’m carefully building a frame around my shape. I’m fitting the girl who could not breathe into a body that could not faint. And when I feel as if something is missing, I create a new part of me. “I will be kind,” I say, and then I try my best. “I will smile without covering my mouth,” I say, and suddenly I am laughter in the best sort of way.
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