Words by Maya Raphael PZ ’27

Graphic by Thea Riley PZ ’28

To me, selfhood is not the intentional curation of an identity but the natural cumulation of experiences within this body.

I contain multitudes. Every step I take is imbued with every step I have ever taken. Every breath I breathe whirls endlessly in the space of my being. The culmination of all pain is captured by a single beat of my heart. My body is a storage center for who I was, who I am, and who I will be. Every moment of my existence is embodied in this vessel.

It is cathartic to know that time is an illusion — that we transcend the simple notions of past and future. Our minds resist the linear march of time, existing through it without binding to any single moment. We live within an endless now, where consciousness is a tapestry, interwoven with threads of memory and presence. Here and now, I am the entirety of my past, present, and future, merged into a single point of awareness.  

I used to live by the Buddhist principle of anatta — the idea that there is no self. The knowledge that personal identity is an illusion helped me traverse my inner teenage turmoil, allowing the fluctuation of hormones, insecurity, and naivety to flow peacefully within me. I still deeply believe in the wisdom of this teaching, but in transitioning to a new period of life, I’ve discovered a deep affection for growing into myself — recontextualizing the past in a way that embodies what is irrevocably me. 

So, I now believe in a dichotomy: the self is both nonexistent and omnipotent. I adopt and cherish the endless contradictions within my being; I’m not cohesive or logical, I am me. All my past selves are intrinsically within me and without me. 

Thus, I am not simply this 20-year-old Maya — the one who goes to Pitzer College, majoring in cognitive science, and finally feels the tangible implications of my developing frontal lobe. She is a mere pinpoint in a grander timeline — a singular frame in a long film. How on Earth am I already marking my twenty-first orbit around the sun?

Just yesterday, it was winter of my sixteenth year, and I was struck with my first heartbreak, mourning my dignity and sobbing into my mom’s linen skirt. I’d naively stuffed all my happiness into this juvenile connection; he told me he ‘lost feelings’ after months of me pampering him with my love. It destroyed me for reasons I couldn’t yet understand. My mom told me that ‘the first is always the worst,’ and I prayed she was right. She was, as she always is; having a therapist mother does have its perks. But 15-year-old Maya was overcome with emotional myopia and my-sophomore-year-boyfriend-was-the-one-for-me syndrome. The nights of endless wondering always resulted in puffy eyes and mascara smeared down my cheeks. I hurt for her; she was precious and naive, harboring an exploitable and innocent love.

I remember being my six-year-old self on the Metolius River in Central Oregon like it was yesterday — with my dad, brother, and the whole world by my side; I cherish the fragmented memories of aimlessly biking on the dusty roads, hiking to the putrid fish hatchery, enticing chipmunks with trails of peanuts, and visiting the General Store for a candy necklace after a long day. It feels like I was just there, with my wispy bright blonde hair, blissful ignorance, and chronic fear of wasps. It hurts that I can’t relive the chronicles of Camp Sherman in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Oh, the nostalgia! But the very imprint they left on me is such a gift, and my yearning is a testament to its beauty. I hold this adventurous, dirty, and rambunctious Maya near and dear to my heart. 

At 13 years old, I was particularly insufferable. You couldn’t pay me to live through middle school again  — dear lord. Those years were characterized by body-shaming toxic friends, internet relationships, and the emerging desire to rebel. My mind and body were a prison that my consciousness didn’t know how to live in, so I latched my identity onto an irrational hatred for my parents and the excitement of rebelling with my new co-ed friend group. Walking into Mt. Tabor Middle School was like jumping into a pool of self-loathing, bullshit beauty standards, social hierarchies, and boys who call you ugly. It was How To Unconditionally Hate Yourself, But Disguise It With Being Cool 101. And don’t get me wrong, I was both a victim and perpetrator of this system, stuck in the cruel feedback loop of external validation.

Not my brightest moment, but to my original point, this intolerable and self-loathing girl still lives within me. She is me; I care for her dearly. I didn’t always. For so long, I suppressed the memory of middle school in an attempt to maintain my dignity. ‘She was just an irrelevant blip of chaos, mutually exclusive of actual identity,’ I mistakenly thought. But the grace of empathy and reflection is a powerful thing. Amid these years of angst and conceit was an 11, 12, 13, and 14 year old girl blowing out the candles on her birthday cake wishing ‘to be happier.’ She was miserable, feeling entirely disconnected from the very wispy bright blonde little girl she was. 

Not too long before this, I was a 5-year-old entering the sophisticated world of elementary school.  I didn’t speak for the first two years; I mean that. I would curl into a ball – what I called ‘turtling’ — when I needed to preserve my solitude, which was often. In first grade, I desperately wanted to get school lunch on Pizza Thursdays, but the uncertainty of the lunch line process kept me far far away; it wasn’t until my older brother drew me a diagram of the entire operation that I agreed to try it out. 

This minor event could easily be deemed entirely irrelevant to who I am today; what use does this memory have for me, fifteen years later? ‘Use’ is a futile measurement in the realm of selfhood. That experience, of being utterly overwhelmed by the complexity of the school lunch operation, exists within me. Even my earliest fears and hesitations are vital threads in the fabric of my identity.

I was deeply shy and timid growing up. My teachers told my parents I may have a developmental difference, as my language skills were rarely utilized. “She writes well though,’ they said.  Thank you; I guess I do write well. You see, I can’t quite adequately communicate my feelings verbally; this seems to be one of the few consistent aspects of my life.

I’ve been cursed with this fun little barrier between my thoughts and my words — my brain and vocal cords. Sometimes, the barrier consists of a stack of crunchy fall leaves — easily crushable! Usually, it’s made of iron. I endlessly punch at it every day. There are sizable dent marks, but no cigar.

So, I write. Here I am, right now, doing it again. My perfectionism is eating me alive as we speak, but that’s no surprise. In the 4th grade, my head practically combusted when my ‘Why We Need More Homeless Shelters’ essay felt ‘wrong’ despite the excessive hours I spent working on it. I struggle to articulate my thoughts, always have and perhaps always will.

But, dear lord, the tornado of thoughts I have every day can get quite overwhelming. No wonder I’m coming up on my 4th anniversary of starting SSRIs. Cheers to fixing chemical imbalances with a perpetual and sinister numbness!

I guess what I am saying is this: my mind, just like my personality and memories, embodies contradiction — my time on this Earth is an uncategorizable journey. Often, I am perplexed and dissatisfied by this, desperately grasping for a continuity of selfhood.

But, maybe that is the point? Maybe searching for a perfectly succinct thought or narrative is futile; it doesn’t exist. Just how a cohesive ‘I’ doesn’t exist. The very disarray of our sentient experience on this Earth is what makes our lives worthwhile. Defining a singular, unchanging self obliterates the pursuit of getting to know oneself throughout time. 

I find solace in the disarray of my identity. At the same time, one of the greatest gifts of life is getting to know yourself — and boundlessly expressing the rawness of who you are. Now, here I am, on the precipice of adulthood, feeling simultaneously eternal and nonexistent. And I’m content with that. 

So hello; I am Maya, a 15-year-old who just got her heart broken, a six-year-old playing with chipmunks at the campground, a self-loathing 13-year-old, and a 20-year-old who views all of her experiences as authentic vestiges of who she truly is.