After a long silence and darkness, I open my eyes.
I whip my head around to the source of the noise that jolted me awake. My arms struggle to escape the covers on my bed and upon doing so reach over and turn off my alarm clock on the bedside table.
I urge my body to get out of bed and after a minute or so it finally complies. I slip on my slippers and stumble out of my room.
I enter the hallway and make my way to the bathroom. I stand in front of the sink and turn the knob to get some water running. I pick up some soap and wash my face.
I use a towel to dry my face off, and then I look in the mirror.
I almost scream, but I'm stunned into silence. For there is now a different face looking back at me. She looks like me, but this girl, instead of my light brown hair, has long black hair, and she is dressed entirely in black, which I never am. Her skin is paler, her eyes are dull, and she seems weak, tired, sad. She has the look of someone forsaken, ignored, brushed aside all the time. She doesn't speak, and looks down, away from me, as if I'm not there.
Then I blink.
And there before me stands another girl, and she is unlike the last in every way possible. She, again, looks like me, but her hair is blonde, her eyes wide open, filled with vitality and brightness and energy. She's wearing a bright pink shirt and she's painted her nails the same color. She smiles at me with the whitest smile I've ever seen before, then she giggles.
And again, I blink.
Sure enough, there is someone else. And each time I blink, I see a new version of myself. I see a shy me, a nerdy me, a sporty me, an artsy me. I keep on looking through all the faces for my old self, the one I know, the one I am, but I can't find it. All the reflections are all people inside of me, fighting for the right to be me, to be my personality, my label. But none of them are me. I'm lost. I'm confused. I'm not anything. I belong nowhere. I have no single personality. I'm just me.
Just me.
The next time I blink, I see my old reflection. I stare at it. Me. Maybe that's not such a bad title. Maybe I don't need to be one thing. Maybe I can be all these people rolled into one. I can just be one of a kind.
I smile, and my reflection smiles back. I'm okay with just being me.
