The almost girl

I was lying by the pool when it hit me—I’m the almost girl.

You know her. The almost girl. The one who’s pretty, almost beautiful. The one whose face makes you look twice, but never long enough to leave an imprint in your memory.
Surely, you’ve met her. When she walks past, you catch a trace of her scent—it lingers, it’s lovely, but not quite enough to turn your head. Her features are symmetrical, her face almost ethereal, but something is missing. Something just out of reach. Something you can never quite name.

And it stings. It stings to realize that even at my happiest, even at my fullest, I will always be almost.

You know the almost girl. The one who sits somewhere in the middle, not in the front rows, but never quite daring to sit with the cool kids at the back. She gets good grades, but she could always push a little harder. She could always elaborate her thoughts, always go further. It’s not that she’s invisible—you see her, you hear her—but she is not the one who moves you. Not the one who inspires awe. She is simply there. She does well, but complaints will always follow. She will graduate, but she won’t be first. She won’t even be last. She will probably be fourth, just close enough to taste the pedestal but never enough to stand on it.

It makes me angry. At myself. At the world. How is it fair to be so full of life and yet only ever be almost great? How is it fair to try so hard and still be left grasping at air? The anger simmers, bubbling under my skin. The rage of being unseen, unchosen, unremarkable. The fury of watching others waltz into the spaces I have bled to reach. It is not just sadness. It is injustice.

You know the almost girl. The one men will settle for when their first choice is out of reach. She is good enough. She will do the work. When you put her on a scale, the answer is always a seven. Yes, she’s funny, independent, smart, but never the one you dream of. Likable, never lovable. The best friend, never the soulmate. A great time, but never the lifetime. You will almost love her. You will want to. But something—something you can’t name—will hold you back. And that will be enough. Enough to leave her behind.

What happens when the almost girl dreams beyond herself? What happens when she refuses to accept her fate?

You know her. The one with her head full of wild dreams, who soars too close to the sun, only to burn. The one who works tirelessly, who tries to mold herself into something more, but it is never enough. Someone else will always come along and achieve twice as much with half the effort. There will always be someone better. You may think her life is good, but you will never wish to be in her shoes. She will keep fighting, keep pouring herself into a dream that remains just out of reach. She will always be close to success, always on the brink.

But what about the people who see her? The ones who recognize the fire in her eyes, who see the way her hands tremble when she fights for something she believes in? Are there are people who watch, people who admire silently, in the shadows? People who take notes, who see her struggle and find inspiration in it. She will never know them. She will never hear them say it. But somewhere, someone has to be watching her, willing her to win, even if she never does.

That almost girl holds too much love inside her, too much passion. It spills over for people, for places, for ideas, but the almost will one day break her.

You know the almost girl. The one who writes, who spills her heart onto pages, only for the world to scroll past. The one who’s just missing something, something nobody can quite define. Maybe it’s the way she smiles, the way she moves, the way she simply exists—always leaving you with an itch you cannot scratch. People will try to fix her, tell her to change; her hair, her clothes, her laugh, her walk. But nothing will ever be quite right. There is potential there, surely, but potential means nothing if it is never reached.

The almost girl is trapped by her own mind. Because for her, settling is not an option.

She dreams too big, loves too fiercely, craves too deeply. She cannot shrink herself into a small, quiet life—a 9-to-5, two kids, a husband who likes her but never quite adores her. That would kill her.

She wants more. More than almost. MORE than great. She reaches beyond the impossible, carving her own path, tearing through limits placed upon her. She fights, even against herself, to get there, to that place where she is whole. To that place where she is enough.

And yet, some nights, she wonders. Wonders what it would be like to stop fighting. Wonders if it would be easier to be content, to accept almost, to let herself sink into mediocrity. Because the truth is, she is tired. Exhausted from the endless reaching, the endless aching.

She thinks about the times she has clawed her way up, only to be overlooked. The times she has poured herself into something, only for the world to take and take and never give back. She remembers the friendships where she was almost enough, the love that was almost requited, the opportunities that were almost hers. And she wonders—what if I just let go?

What if she stopped fighting? Would the world even notice? Would anyone stop and ask why? Or would they simply shrug, as if she had never really been there to begin with?

She may be the almost girl, but she refuses to accept that. And maybe that refusal will kill her too. Or maybe—just maybe—it will save her.