Finding Lily Again

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My family calls me Lily.

And everyone else does not… (Lol)

For some reason, the second people find out Lily is my nickname, they start testing it out. Like knowing that information gives them a pass. Like they’ve unlocked something personal just by hearing it. It irritates me in a way I can’t fully explain. ( I think the day I let a man call me lily- and it doesn’t completely tick me off- is the day I know he’s the one)

But only a very small circle gets to call me Lily. (I’m passionate about this)

Because Lily is precious to me. ( I sound crazy)

She is the girl I lost for eight years and had to fight to start getting back. ( I sound crazier)

Only my family ever got to see Lily in her full glory.

(They also got to experience Lilith, which is my other alter ego and, for lack of better words, a nightmare. Be glad you’ve never met her. And for the poor boy who ever brings her out — hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You’ve been warned.)

But Lily is different.

Lily is soft and fearless at the same time. She walks into rooms assuming she belongs there. She talks to everyone. She believes people will like her because why wouldn’t they? She doesn’t overanalyze her laugh or replay every sentence she said that day.

And somewhere around eighth grade, I started losing her.

Losing Lily

I began caring deeply about what people thought of me in middle school. I think that’s when it happens for most girls. Instagram Rumor pages. Anonymous comments. Friend groups were posting exactly what they were doing, so you could very clearly see you were not included. It was the first time I remember feeling the ache of loneliness in a way that stuck.

I remember thinking, “Maybe my personality isn’t what people like.”

Which is wild, because even as I thought that, another part of me thought, That’s crazy. My personality is fine.

But instead of changing who I was completely, I just adjusted the volume and got quieter.

That followed me into high school.

On cheer, my coach once said in front of the whole group, “Alivia doesn’t talk much, but when she does, it’s golden.” It was meant to be kind, and it totally was. But I remember sitting there thinking, Since when do I not talk much?

I would sit on the bus alone writing in my journal. I told myself I liked the alone time, and sometimes I did. But there’s a difference between choosing solitude and feeling like you don’t belong anywhere else.

By junior year of high school, I left a friend group that wasn’t helping my cause. I didn’t have the maturity to articulate it that way back then. I just knew I felt smaller around them.

BUT- There was this one moment at cheer practice when I was completely ready to quit. And this blonde girl I had cheered with for years walked up to me and said, “We have to be bases together.” She said it with this excitement, like I was exactly who she wanted.

I will never forget that feeling.

That moment shaped me more than she probably knows. It made me realize how powerful it is to make someone feel chosen. Since then, I’ve always wanted to be the girl who walks up to someone and makes them feel like that. ( we are still friends to this day!)

I was starting to find my voice again.

And then I let another relationship shrink me. (Womp Womp)

Lily, who was just beginning to reappear, got boxed in again.(Womp Womp)

That carried into college. There were days I would look at myself in the mirror and cry because I felt so far from who I used to be. I felt heavy.…Cynical.…Guarded. I just wanted to be that carefree, bubbly girl again. the one who didn’t overthink everything or assume she was too much.

Leaving that relationship was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. But when I look back at both times I walked away from the wrong people, I see something clearly now:

It’s better to lose a lover than love a loser.

(Say that three times fast)

After that, I made a decision that felt small at the time but changed everything.

If I was going to be alone, I was going to do it on purpose.

Finding Lily

I forced myself to sit in the discomfort of loneliness instead of clinging to the next person who made me feel temporarily wanted. I took myself to restaurants alone. I went shopping alone. I cried when I needed to. I built hobbies. I made myself learn that being alone is not worse than being in a bad relationship or surrounding yourself with people who quietly make you feel small.

Then I did a very scary thing

I went back up to Logan — a place that held so much loneliness for me — and I faced it head on. People told me that was dramatic, that I was putting myself through unnecessary emotional turmoil.

I didn’t care.

I had to do it for Alivia and lily. (read this blog post here about how scared I was lol)

And guess what freaking happend?!

I started thriving. I started going to parties alone and talking to strangers like it was nothing. I started doing things just because I could. I noticed how outgoing I felt. How unbothered I was. How light everything seemed when I wasn’t trying to manage other people’s opinions of me.

Two weeks ago, I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks.

“I think I found Lily.”

And I cried.

I was so overwhelmingly happy to feel reunited with my 11-year-old self : the girl I had been mourning for eight years.

And she was hiding under a shrub (lol)

Just kidding- I found her by forcing myself to be uncomfortable. By choosing growth over validation. By walking away when it hurt. By sitting alone at tables. By refusing to shrink to make other people comfortable.(Yada Yada… we get it)

Lily was never gone.

She was buried under fear. andUnder boys who didn’t know how to love a bright, spunky girl.

And when I stopped clinging to what was dimming me?

She came back.

That’s why not everyone gets to call me Lily.

And I fought like heaven to get her back.

If you are looking for your old self, I believe you can do it! sit in the uncomfortableness and do hard things.

Until next blog,

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