My Old Guitar

I have an old guitar in my room. I remember how badly I had wanted one when I was younger. I thought it would be relatively easy to learn and I begged my parents to get me one for Christmas. I remember how excited I was to see its distinct shape under the tree. I tore at the wrapping paper, and there it was. Shiny, new and beautiful, it was more perfect than I ever could have hoped. After many failed attempts to learn how to play, I gave up and set it in the back of my closet, where I forgot about it for numerous years. Only now, taking it out after all these years, do I see the resemblance between it and me.

My whole life, I was bright, joyful and eager. I had so much going, but I have always been most proud of my intelligence. From a young age, I was constantly told how mature, well-spoken and smart I was. Always top of the class. Always straight As. Always sure I could achieve my lofty goals. But as time went on, like my guitar, I began to rust. Life experiences jaded me and I learned to put walls around my emotions. I began to trust less because people were not always how I thought they were. To speak less because not everyone cared about what I had to say. To look differently because my hair wasn’t like how the other girls’ hair was and my body was no longer stick-thin. More time passed and I began to feel things I hadn’t felt before, or rather, a lack thereof. I truly had nothing to complain about, but there were times where I would stare at my bedroom wall wondering why I was put on this Earth if I only negatively affected it. Soon enough, my grades began to drop too. The one thing that had always held my most self worth, was leaving me. I was taking harder courses now, and things that had once taken no effort, now seemed impossible. For the first time in my life, I felt genuinely, utterly stupid. A word I would have never before used to describe myself. I started to lose my discipline, motivation, and my confidence. I no longer believed that I was worth the fight.

Now, I am tired. I am always crying. I am always overthinking, but never about the right things. And I don’t see the point of anything that I do. No matter how much I sleep, I always wake up wanting to close my eyes again, and the heavy feeling that once came and went in waves, seems permanent. I tried therapy, but that didn’t work. I also tried my own form of therapy, which just landed me deeper in the hole I had been subconsciously digging for myself. I also no longer feel pretty. Ah yes, my looks. Something else that was always commented on. That’s gone now too. No matter how much makeup I put on, I never feel attractive. My body is all out of shape as well. Round curves in all of the wrong places, and no matter how I starve myself or try to puke up what I ate, I can’t resist going back to eating.

Everything that made me stand out before is gone, and now I am left with nothing. I feel completely gray. No more color, or fun shapes, nothing interesting. Just. Gray.

Now I feel even more connected to my old guitar. Once beautiful and bright, now rusty and collecting dust in a back corner, where I reminisce about the times when I had something special.