A Spoken Self Portrait

A Story by Naomi Bianca

If we start quite literal, Naomi is 25 years old, she was born on, some would say, quite a unique birthday, the 8th of the 8th 1988. She takes comfort knowing her birthday is somewhat special, meaning that she as a human, might be somewhat special also. She’s 6’0 ft tall and wears it well, she does not use her height as a crutch and does not excuse her height with rounded shoulders. She stands tall and exudes confidence… or whatever a strong and tall posture translate too. She always had the urge to stand out, being unconsciously or on purpose. Some say it’s because she’s a leo, leos are known to crave everyone’s attention. Well Naomi demands, she never asks, however she never goes out of her way to get it, it naturally revolves around her. She understands well the dance for attention and knows when it’s the right time to return it. She utilizes her outer appearance for the unasked but wanted peer attention. Her style is an amalgamation of all the recent trends peppered with her unique take on things. She views clothes as a game, characters hidden in her closet and drawers. Her haircut is also a topic of conversation, she cuts it herself, shaving her whole head but leaving the top untouched, when let loose and straight, her hair goes down under her chin, but she also likes to keep it up, creating a sort of refined mohawk with a twist of the hand and two bobby pins. Not only is she tall but she’s thin, clothes always seem to fit perfectly on her body, hugging the right curves and falling at the right places. Her obsession on shoes are limited to sneakers and boots, she possesses the confidence to stand tall but does not yet have the confidence to stand taller in heels, unfortunately it’s because she tends to date men who are the same height as her and feeling like a giant oaf isn’t a feeling she’s searching for.

Naomi considers herself and old soul, she started questioning the meaning of life and all the existential questions which can follow suit, at a very young age. At the age of 15, she was already calling up her mom in the middle of night, scared she would fail at raising her future children properly. She turned to writing to let some of that anxiety go, writing a short story almost every day, they were dark, filled with deaths and demons but they were nothing to worry about, she once told her mother, it was the only thing she found interesting to write about at that age. Pushing the boundaries of her mind and imagination, she would let the words flow out on the notebook and let her hand and eyes create a story, she would always finish it in one sitting, she never had the patience for anything longer. She needed the idea out and on paper. she needed it to exist outside of her own mind as fast as possible. Naomi had been brought up in a bilingual household and was lucky to be able to express herself in both languages. She used the french language mostly for poetry, she found that the words were a pleasure to rime with, an amorous flow to the sentences. Whereas, in english she loved to play with imagery, what word paired with another could create a vivid picture in someone else’s head. She thought she would become a writer of some sort at that age, a journalist perhaps. All ended quite abruptly when she entered a writing contest and had her naive ego put into question. She was too young to accept constructive criticism, mostly because, deep down she thought she was damn good. Her only critics, until then were her mother and her two best friends, not exactly the three right people to allow her to grow as a writer. She was devastated and defeated, her leo ego limply dragging on the ground behind her.

After that little cataclysmic event in her fragile teenage years, she went on to study social sciences in college and somewhat forgot she was a writer at heart. Her short stories were far and few between, too busy writing essays on globalization and blood diamonds in Sierra Leone. She still nurtured the thought that she would one day become a journalist in the very least, somewhere abroad, writing about human rights and international relations. That all changed when she decided to take a gap year between college and university and become a scuba instructor in Thailand. Her gap year gradually became 2 and then 3 years until 6 years had passed and she had not yet gone back to university. She wasn’t worried. All her travels and her scuba diving experiences were inching her throughout the years to where she is right now. She’s not 19 anymore, she has become an adult with a clear view on what she wants as a career and it has all to do with the ocean. When she was a teenager she believed writing was her true passion but deep down she had a feeling something even greater was waiting for her. Most people wait there whole life to find that one true thing, that one thing that makes them feel alive. Naomi had not waited, she had traveled the world to find it and she wasn’t letting go of it anytime soon.