Memoirs of My Past Life
an excerpt

[Currently murdering my darlings (or at the very least maiming them). However, I stand to wonder if they are murdering ME.]

Chapter 8: Words

“Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

My sister turned four soon after I turned one. She had cake and ice cream and all the manner of sweet things...fitting, since her temper had sweetened. Eventually, my sister would be the person I trusted the most. For now she was the person who tormented me the most. My brother was a silent presence at six...our father's death had done...something to him, something that hit him somewhere deep.

Even now, sometimes, his eyes look far ahead as if searching for someone who will never come. But there is happiness now, in his life. He's dating, in love. We are all fools in love but if you met my brother you would not find a bigger fool.

At that age...one or so (and until I was two), these people were all abstract ideas of security. Mother, brother, sister...symbols that I would be safe. Maybe that is why babies often say 'Mama' or 'Papa', or on the off chance 'Brother' or 'Sister', as their first words.

What a powerful thing, really...words. The gift of communication is one we take lightly most of the time, without comprehending how truly powerful it is. One word can determine life or death. Then again, Choice is like that. Choosing your words can be the difference between two extremes.

In my past life, I didn't say much. I think I said that before, but I'll say it again. I was the quiet type. preferring not to make waves and have my silence interpreted any way anyone liked. It was taking the power out of my hands but I didn't really mind. I was content to live with my silence.

Being silent was the mark of my being an absolute doormat. I'll be frank, that's the truth. Choosing not to raise my voice when I had the opportunity to be heard was the stupidest mistake of my past life. A lot of things that shouldn't have gone unsaid went unsaid because I was too...too...it wasn't fear. It was more that I was used to being silent, familiarity breeding contempt but already it had become a habit. That's the thing with habits, they make you or they break you.

And my habit of silence could have broken me. Perhaps that is why I was given this...second life (not the computer game, a real, tangible second life where if you are a male you don't have to buy your...ehem, appendages.). A chance to raise my voice when I never used to raise it.

"A little rebellion is good, now and then." as Thomas Jefferson (I think my attribution is correct but quotes have only become my fixation recently.) would have it. Silence was my compliance, my voice is now my rebellion. I will not be anyone's doormat anymore.

I learned to speak pretty late, one year and a few months is usually a bit delayed for a girl. For boys, some speak a little later. It's a factor that shows the difference between male and female. In boys, the motor skills come to strength first. In girls, the faculties of speech and thought. Of course, this is not to say that boys are mindless physical beings, and women brains. I've met a lot of people that are the reverse, the boy being the brain and the girl being...simply a plaything, a physical being.

I will have no more controversy for now. I'm not here to argue the nuances of nature versus nurture, the birds and the bees, developmental science. I'm a creative writing student, a photography major. I'm putting down only what I know.

And what I know is this. That despite my silence, docility, inside I was a tempest of emotions. One of the things that was both almost my undoing and eventually the thing that set me free was the fact I did not show my emotions, did not let out my bottled screams.

So my speech is laden with clichés from lack of practice. Very annoying. But at the very least I have determined my favorite words: cliché, paradox, façade, truth, and voice. All have something to do with me. I may speak in clichés, but I'm saying something new, and therein lies the paradox. I used to live under a façade, but now I've found the truth because I've chosen to finally raise my voice.

When I was an infant, I didn't have a favorite word. In fact, I knew only one.

That word was air.