hc + childhood, hc + fear, hc + facade, hc + happiness
headcanon + childhood
There are very few moments that Aaliyah actually remembers from her childhood that were happy. Most of it seems like it passed by in a blur, as though everything was just dark, likely because she tends to try and repress a lot of those memories. She never saw her parents talking to each other when they lived under the same roof. Her mother would judge her father for coming home drunk and he would call her a hypocritical shrew at the most. So amid growing up with an environment like this, she never really knew what she was supposed to do in those moments. She was not capable enough to defuse the situation and it was obvious they were unhappy. Often times it would be whispered that they were only together because of Aaliyah’s sake which added yet another burden to her shoulders. She needed to be good enough, to make them proud because they were sacrificing their happiness for her sake. So when her father left, in some ways it should have been a relief. When they decided to separate the burden should have been lifted off her shoulders, but that was likely what prompted Aaliyah’s inferiority complex. Despite her mother always putting pressure on her, knowing that she had not ended up being enough to make them find their happiness together really messed with her. Amid all of this chaos there is one summer when she was six or seven that she remembers they came to Homestead, and they were happy. At least she remembers it that way. And right after those few weeks spent in their family beach house, her father and mother never saw each other again. She had thought that they were finally happy with each other, that maybe when they went back to New York things would become normal. But really her parents were happy to have to never see each other again.
headcanon + fear
Aaliyah really fears that her mother has been right the whole time. She has convinced herself that Eleanor believes that she is useless and she has spent her entire life trying to prove her mother wrong. But it terrifies her every day to think that maybe, just maybe, her mother might have never been wrong about her. When she looks back at all her relationships, all her academic ventures or her professional attempts, they all look like failures. Aaliyah has told herself that is because they were never right for her, or that life always got in the way but there is that small voice in her head that keeps telling her maybe it was actually her. Maybe she really doesn’t know how to do anything but disappoint people and to ever learn that is true would shatter Aaliyah. it is why she keeps trying things but never really committing to anything. If she quits early on, there is no chance for failure. She can just say that this particular profession wasn’t for me or I haven’t found my calling yet. The same is true with people. She doesn’t share any of her deeper emotions but in the same way, her relationships likely do not hold too much substance as a result. If she doesn’t open up, the other likely doesn’t either. And it’s easiest to maintain things this way given what happened to Rose. It is a way for her to not feel guilty because neither is she unloading all her emotional baggage on someone nor is she giving them the wrong advice on how to deal with their own problems. Also avoiding making genuine connections, just maintaining surface level friendships with all allows her to leave when she wants without feeling guilty about the people she is leaving behind because she had never been too significant of a person in their lives anyways. In all these ways, Aaliyah is able to run away from her fear of failure, her fear of disappointing people.
headcanon + facade
Unsurprisingly Aaliyah’s hates confronting her feelings and thus has painting this image of herself for the world. Having rarely shared her emotions with anyone growing up, as she got older she realized it is actually easier to make friends if she just pretends like everything is okay. Somewhere along acting like she was all better, like she was doing the emotionally healthy thing by leaving her mother and trying to find peace, she has fooled herself into thinking that she has moved past the trauma of her childhood. She mask she wears allows her to hide all the insecurities, all the real issues that she has never even confronted. With a smile and a bubbly personality, no one would imagine that there is actually a broken girl. And this way, all the love that she did not receive from her mother can be achieved from other people. She started after leaving New York to travel the world and could just pretend that she was getting better. In high school, the eating disorder was a manifestation of all the pent up emotions and questions that Aaliyah never bothered to ask her mother and after a while it just exploded and got the better of her. The same is likely to happen the more she continues to avoid facing her real demons and the more she keeps running, telling herself that she is completely okay.
headcanon + happiness
This is such a foreign concept for Aaliyah and she cannot even be sure if there are really times when she felt true happiness. Even if she did, they have certainly been overshadowed by the negative times in her life. However she will say that if she were to find this happiness, she would certainly find it only outside New York City. Given that the city itself represents everything that she hates about her life, the place that everything went wrong, she cannot ever imagine going back and being happy there. Maybe it is a defense mechanism, maybe it is her fight or flight response but this is just how she is. She had a lot of great times traveling the world and perhaps that was the time that she found a lot of peace. Though it is not often that she does this given it is not necessarily the safest of practices, the same peace for her can be attained in the ocean just floating on her back on the nights of full moons. These few moments are probably the closest that Aaliyah can say she has gotten to happiness but so long as she has her insecurities chasing after her, she likely will never realize how to be actually happy, how to be completely burden free and emotionally secure with herself.
