Inspiration: She Used To Be Mine
It's not simple to say
Most days I don't recognize me
These shoes and this apron
That place and its patrons
Have taken more than I gave 'em
It's not easy to know
I'm not anything like I used to be
Although it's true
I was never attention sweet center
I still remember that girl
She's imperfect but she tries
She is good but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won't ask for help
She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up
And baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine
It's not what I asked for
Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person
And makes you believe it's all true
And now I've got you
And you're not what I asked for
If I'm honest I know I would give it all back
For a chance to start over
And rewrite an ending or two
For the girl that I knew
Who be reckless just enough
Who can hurt but
Who learns how to toughen up when she's bruised
And gets used by a man who can't love
And then she'll get stuck and be scared
Of the life that's inside her
Growing stronger each day
'Til it finally reminds her
To fight just a little
To bring back the fire in her eyes
That's been gone but it used to be mine
Used to be mine
She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Sara Bareilles
She Used to Be Mine lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc, Tiny Bear Music
When I hear these words, I feel the hollow echo of someone I once carried inside me. Most days, I do not recognize her, the one who walked the streets with her own hips, her own dreams, her own sharp edges. These shoes, this apron, the routines, the weight of expectation—they have carved her into someone unrecognizable. Life did not ask permission before it entered. It slipped in like a thief and left fingerprints on the bones of who I thought I was.
She is messy but she is kind. She is broken but she does not ask for help. I know her. I have lived in her shadow, in the quiet chamber where self-judgment echoes louder than applause. That girl—attention never sweet, heart always open, reckless in small ways—is buried beneath layers of obligation, compromise, survival. And yet, despite everything, she persists in fragments. I see her sometimes in the glint of morning light, in the fleeting patience I offer my children, in the stubbornness that refuses to surrender to despair.
It is not what I asked for, life. No one ever hands you the story you imagine for yourself. Pain enters through back doors, through the small betrayals of expectation, through the slow erosion of belief in your own worth. I have been used. I have been afraid. I have been angry and silent and lonely in rooms full of people. And yet, in those same rooms, I have learned how to fight, to sharpen, to reclaim a little fire.
I want that girl back, not as she was, but as she might have been if the world had been gentler, if the choices had been mine to write. She is gone but not vanished. Her memory is stitched into my marrow. Every act of courage, every act of kindness, every late night spent staring at a ceiling with a mind that refuses to quiet—it is her fire flickering. She is baked into this life, this pie of contradictions, messy and lonely and tender.
And so I walk forward, carrying pieces of her in my hands, in my voice, in the brushstrokes of my art. I honor her by remembering how fiercely she tried, how unflinchingly she loved, and how, even when she was lost to the world, she remained mine. That girl is still mine because I have not stopped seeking her, because in the quiet moments I catch the flash of her eyes and remember what it feels like to belong to oneself.
