myself in the mirrorball

By Jayla Jones

myself in the mirrorball

By fourth-year claire d’agostino

i remember reading robert frost’s poem in my high school english class. you know the one: “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” or perhaps you know the more famous last line: “i took the one less traveled by, / and that has made all the difference.” 

our class gave what we thought was a thorough analysis: the poem is a celebration of choosing the path that is unpopular. through this, we concluded, the speaker of the poem truly became an individual. it is a testament to rugged self-assuredness and the beauty of individualism. 

however, my teacher looked at it from a different lens—that the poetic voice made a hard choice and had no way of knowing whether it was the correct decision. so in the future when he looked back at his life, he convinced himself that he chose a unique path to cope with the idea that his life could have been completely different if he chose something else.

depressing, right? 

now, rather than two paths that lie before me, i find myself in my living room looking up at the mini disco ball that is still up from my birthday party in may. staring at the fractured reflections of my image, i see versions of myself like alter egos. 

i see myself in middle school, a quiet and hurting girl who felt isolated from the world around her. 

i see myself in my freshman year of college: someone who thought that they understood their place in the world and had everything figured out—only for it all to become unraveled just a few years later.

not only the past, but i see the future too.

i see a version of myself that has successfully moved abroad and is teaching english there.

i see myself starting graduate school and moving into an apartment on my own in a city that is unfamiliar to me. 

at first, i am filled with dread. i am plagued by the idea that there are so many versions of claire—ones that i will never meet but also ones that are forever stuck in the past. are they all still me? looking in the mirrorball, how can i see so many different selves that still form one person? 

yet beyond the dread, there is a sense of contentedness and peace with where i am now. although there are so many roads i could take—some that i can’t even fathom—i know that existing in the present moment is all that i can do. worrying about past decisions or decisions that may never be made will leave me staring at the mirrorball forever.

all i can do now is look away. i take it down and pack it up. although i cannot see it, it reminds me that every version of myself is truly and completely me.