how to talk to your inner child

Maybe you’ll see her beside the bus stop as you’re stumbling back from a late night. When you meet for the first time, you are unsure what to call her. You like Marina because it sounds flowy, like a wave in your mouth, but for most of your life you were Marie. The -na was an addition, a result of your liberal arts education when you spent too much time trying to grow into your fully formed self. Maybe Marie sounds correct, but she doesn’t look like a baby anymore. Marie implies a red ribbon and patent leather shoes. Almost pure but not quite so. The first question she asks is whether you’re married yet, and you break out in nervous laughter.

The second time you see Marie might be more intimate. You’re staying at a friend’s place in Brooklyn, and the two of you are sitting on the floor, devouring a bowl of pasta and rehashing the most painful moments of your childhoods. And there’s Marie on the edge of the sofa, leaning in to hear the details. She hasn’t grown into her nose yet, and there’s a smattering of freckles across her cheeks. You wonder where all your freckles went over the years and why you’ve grown to detest summertime. You tell a joke, and she giggles. You didn’t think she would. Does she find you funny?

Eventually, you have to break the news that you’re a lesbian. (If she hasn’t already guessed by the number of rings you own or your love of Patti Smith.) So you sit her down for a talk. She cocks her head, fidgets awkwardly on the couch. But you see the gears turning in her head. Marie is remembering fourth grade and how much she loved to hear Ms. Dearborn read out loud from a faded copy of Bridge to Terabithia and how she went home and cried when the rope snapped and Leslie died. Maybe Marie doesn’t understand all of this at once. She might storm out of the room or sit in silence and shake her head. Either one is fine, but you can’t leave your little visitor hanging.

You remember that Marie loves to ride her bike around the neighborhood, so you buy her a tiny bike at a charity sale. The pedals are a little rusty, but she’ll make do. Your college town is small and unassuming, so you figure that she’ll find her way. One afternoon, she comes back with a twisted ankle, and you scold her for not being careful. In the grocery store, she throws a tantrum in the cereal aisle, and you try to hide behind the Special K while a mother pulls her toddler closer to her chest. You try to remember the last time you cried like this and got away with it. You try to remember the last time you cried.

You are never without Marie. She eats your food, tries on your clothes, and follows you to your first real date in months. She sits next to you in the booth as you make awkward conversation with Christina, your lab partner who is good at making you laugh. You sip on your latte and Marie watches you backtrack on your words, agreeing but never adding.

Later, Marie will interrogate you.

“I wish you would try and act more like a person than an alien,” she says while standing on the sofa, suddenly a little adult in a gingham dress.

“Dating is hard. It wasn’t perfect, so what?”

“I don’t know. You look older, but you’re not. It’s weird.”

“What do you mean?” You are defensive without trying.

“Seems like…you haven’t done anything that a 20 year old is supposed to do.”

That one will hurt. You’ll go to bed and spend all night thinking. Maybe if you’d moved out earlier, or went to school in a different state. But nothing you say will leave you less empty than before.

You wake up and stumble downstairs. You bring Marie an ice cream cone for breakfast as a way of making amends, but she isn’t in the guest bedroom. She is nowhere. And the red bike in the garage isn’t child-sized. It fits you quite well, except the pedals are a little rusty. You bike up the hill, past the driveway with your mom’s sedan, no longer in your college town but somewhere more spacious, yet familiar.