First Invitation

After everything, I was too tired to face myself again. I still didn’t know who I really was. The bigger version I had built in my head, or the smaller one I had always been afraid wasn’t enough. In the middle of that confusion, I found myself at a strange tea table. Next to the Mad Hatter, and the rabbit I used to feel anxious just looking at. The Hatter was strange to me. The big hat, the messy hair, the careless laugh. He didn’t look like anyone I had spent my life trying to become. He wasn’t trying to be complete. He wasn’t worried about being judged. He wasn’t even ashamed of being called mad. Maybe he was the only one in this place who didn’t feel he had to change himself to be accepted. And the rabbit. The same anxious creature who was always late, now sitting quietly and drinking tea. Maybe he had finally understood that time isn’t only about running and arriving sooner. Sometimes you have to stop so life doesn’t get lost in the hurry. I looked at the cups on the table. None of them matched. One was chipped. One was old. One was too small. They looked like my life. For years I waited for everything to fall into place. To become more successful. More beautiful. More confident. To finally reach the version of myself I had imagined. I thought that was when I would be allowed to enjoy anything. But now I was sitting next to a man who wasn’t trying to be perfect, and a rabbit who no longer seemed interested in outrunning every clock. Maybe I was never going to wake up one day and suddenly like everything I disliked in myself. Maybe I only had to learn how to live with all of it. Some days I still don’t like myself. Sometimes I’m bigger in my head and smaller in real life. I still get scared of falling behind. I still argue with myself for hours before starting the simplest thing. But I’m starting to understand that I don’t have to become the best version of myself before I’m allowed to have a good moment. I drank my tea. Nothing in me had changed in a big way. My fears were still there. For a few minutes, I just didn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone. Strange. I’m so sleepy.