About Me and Bea

I was a very not-childish child. I grew up among adults and (maybe because of that) I always liked teenagers, adults and elders. Never children. And for a long while, I didn’t like myself either.

I couldn’t wait to go to school already so I can talk to the adults too. I remember very clearly a moment when I was with my cousin at our grandparents’ and grandpa asked her how was school, as she is one year and a half older than me. At that moment I wanted to fast, fast forward until the first day of school so I have a serious discussion topic too. No one would ask me how kindergarten was. Why would they? And it was clear that no one wanted to have a serious talk about my imaginary friends.

As a child, I absolutely loved to play. And my imagination. OMG. I had imaginary friends, plush toy families, I used to write short stories. I loved to reimagine my favourite cartoons. I played for a long time. But early enough I had to move my games into my head before going to bed. I used it as a method to stop overthinking right before I fall asleep. From the first grade, I didn’t have time to play as much as I wanted anymore. I was buried in homework. I still played a lot, but not as much. But that game made me look for new narrative lines, I had to respect all the decisions I took before and so on - just like writing a theatre play.

In time school kinda started stomping on my creativity. Jo the Giant, Hambua the Strigoi, Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, The Talking C-H-I-C-K-E-N Leg and many others disappeared slowly but surely. Maybe that was my worst trauma - being forced to detach from my imagination. From the fifth grade, we had to write serious texts, read serious books, and act seriously. We couldn’t act like mermaids or Xiaolin Showdown. Which is okay - those days need to end at some point. But it shouldn’t turn us into some preteens without imagination.

Slow and steady I started to suffocate my inner child. There was no time left for its stories. I probably hated it so much because I was jealous of it. What do you mean you were allowed to imagine an entire world and put it on paper and now I have to write my opinion about the importance of games for the harmonious development of a child in 150 words? That’s not how growing up was supposed to be.

I closed the child in a cage and left it there for years. Yuck. I was terrified to read my texts, I was only looking at old pictures of myself just to see how much my features have changed. Yuck. Why was I allowed to be as I wanted to be back then and now I had to be as I had to be? Yuck. Why would no one tell me back then to be a lady, to act nicely and now it was a problem to ask some questions? Yuck.

Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

Writing this I’m thinking whether this wasn’t actually the reason I went through a long period when I didn’t like myself - because I had curly hair, because my teeth were crooked and then I had braces, because my nose was I don’t know-how. It’s clear I wasn’t feeling good in my skin at all because I couldn’t be me.

I left my hair curly and dyed it red (then violet, grey, blue, purple and came back to the colour that represents me). I started to like myself - I play the guitar, I have a good voice, I am a good PR, I have the nicest teeth (even if some of them are fake) and I actually look good. But that happened after I started to look inside me in workshops and talks with youth workers.

Last year around May I was reading Petronela Rotar’s “Privind Înăuntru” (Looking Inside) and there she also talks about the relationship with the inner child. And that’s when I started to ask myself what’s the matter? I still don’t like kids so it wasn’t easy to connect with myself, but I managed in the end. I was very cute. Since then I posted some of Bea the Child’s texts even to mark the end of my best friend, Blacky’s, story.

I’m still working on my creativity - it seems that I buried that quite deep. It’s easy for me to write anything except fiction. And that’s so annoying because I love fiction the most. I feel as if Bea the Child pulls me back and asks ‘Are you sure we’re allowed to write something like that? Aren’t we going off the topic?’ - the questions I had to ask myself before writing anything. ‘Yes, Bea, it’s okay to write fiction. Now no one keeps our creativity captive.’

I’m still very scared to write all the ideas that come into my head. I’m afraid that someone will come and scold me for what’s with these stupid texts, go write something serious. And my inner child (who once cried because a teacher wanted to move me away from my best friend) would start crying and it would hide somewhere with my creativity. But I take small steps - a childhood text, a new text. We’ll reach the light somehow.

On Child’s Day, I wish you all (kids and inner kids) not to let anyone rip your creativity into pieces. And if they broke it already, see if there’s any chance for you to fix it. But fix it with the Kintsugi technique, with a golden thread, so it comes back even more beautiful than before.