The Girl I Used To Be (by Laurie Faria Stolarz)

Last night, I dreamed that a younger version of myself visited me. She was around three or four years old, and it was clear to me that she was a ghost—or at least, that’s how I understood her.

She sat in front of me on my bed. She didn’t speak. She just smiled and showed me the distinct moles on her skin, the ones I’ve had since birth—proof that she was me. That I was once her.

She was innocent in the way I used to be.

Lately, life has been a bit complicated. My mother’s illness has progressed quickly—so quickly that time feels warped. A year ago, I lived inside a different version of reality. The same can be said for five years ago, and ten years ago, and twenty...

In some way, I think innocence gets stripped away from us little by little as we experience and see more. In this current moment, especially in what I’m living through with my mom, things feels extra fragile, and some things feel very much unfinished. There’s little space between moments to absorb what’s happening. Instead, there’s adjustment after adjustment, and layers of loss.

So maybe the little girl was showing me a version of myself I needed to remember—a time when things felt lighter; a time before medical terms and timelines; before learning how quickly people can change; and before understanding that love and fear can occupy the same space. 

The girl wasn’t there to warn me or comfort me, and she didn’t ask for anything. She simply existed—calm, unmistakable, whole. As if to say: I was real. I am real.

And, though she wasn't scary in any way, calling her a ghost feels accurate. When I think about the term "ghost," I have to acknowledge that, regardless of one's beliefs, a ghost isn’t gone; it’s something that no longer lives in the present but hasn’t disappeared either. That’s how that version of me feels now. Not gone. Just distant.

She didn’t ask me to go back in time.

She didn’t promise things would get easier either.

She simply proved that time keeps moving forward—and that every version of us, even the struggling ones, will one day be missed.