Time doesn’t exist here. 

There are no clocks, no phones. 

Here, beauty and smarts count for nothing. 

You don’t have to be happy, in a relationship or even liked.

You don’t need friends or flowers on Valentine’s Day.  

In the bathroom, you are the audience and the show. What other place can you be naked and sing/dance, while being able to look at the parts of you? How they move, how they look. 

In the bathroom, you can really be yourself, without shame or embarrassment. You can investigate, adventure or pleasure.

There is no need to act here, you can just be. 

At 23, I have learned to accept whoever meets me in the bathroom after a long day.  Whoever I see I greet with open arms, at whatever time she arrives. To the shower, she’s always on time.  

My earliest memory of becoming someone was inside four walls and a room full of steam. 

The shower has always been my own personal recording booth, where my 8-year-old singing voice would bounce off the tiles. When my voice wasn’t strong or mature enough; in the shower, my voice rang smooth and seamless.

I noticed I was someone better in there, I just didn’t know who yet.

In my final year of highschool, I managed a whole legal essay on the walls using the fog and my finger.  Words seated on top of each other like stacked pigeons, before the steam would erase them.

I hoped that I would breathe them in, absorb them like cigarette smoke, only to have them reappear when I needed them most.

I could always think best in the shower. 

Everything was always clear there, despite not being able to see a thing.

When I turned 11, the bathroom became a place where I was reminded of loss. 

Every time I looked in a mirror, at a reflective surface- all I saw was her.

Sometimes, when I looked for too long, I would feel ashamed of how much I missed her. How much I missed someone who didn’t want me. 

Yet I wore her golden blonde hair, her green eyes, her long legs like they were mine.

On darker days, I wondered if my appearance was the reason my dad wouldn’t have dinner with me- why we would all exist behind closed doors.

Some days, I would avoid my reflection altogether.

I remember after she left, there was one song I would play on repeat as I curled up into a ball. The song would soothe me as I grieved. It was like I was a baby again and I was trying to be reborn. 

In the darkness, I could confess how much I missed having a mum. 

Someone who believed in you for doing nothing. I would admit how lonely I was without her.

The shower would become a daily funeral, which I attended for years. 

When I became a woman, I was 13. I found blood on my hands and no idea what to do next; however, I learned that becoming a woman was never easy for anyone.

My friend became one violently, when she was raped one night by her best friend at camp.

I’ve been told that if you decide to become a mother, the bathroom changes its meaning once again. 

It becomes a place where you can reclaim yourself in small moments alone. 

Sometimes it’s a swipe of mascara, a blow-dry, a quick dance or even a frantic spray of your grandmother’s perfume. 

All small clues to remember yourself before you belonged to others. 

The relationship you form with yourself when you’re alone is the most important, as it determines who you are.

So remember to appreciate and be kind to whoever looks back.