I think like most people, during quarantine I was on a path of "finding myself." I felt like for once, because the world was on pause, I had an opportunity to really sit down with myself and discover who it was that I wanted to be, like truly.
At first, I felt like I had done it. That was in February, back when I first titled this post. It's been sitting in my drafts because I wanted this to be a post that I took my time with. I was gonna document the beginning of my "reinvention" all the way to where I was at in February (shoutout to mullet Kayla <3). However, I never got around to working on it, and I think that was for a reason. See, I thought I had done it, truly reinvented myself, but the person I thought I had evolved to was idealized. I had set aside goals and all the things I was gonna do, but the problem with that was that I was living in the future.
When someone changes, like actually changes, they don't announce that change. Meaning that a changed person won't say, "I've changed", especially if there's been a limited amount of time between the "new" them and their "past" self. But that was what I was doing, or at least going to do when I first decided to write this post. I was going to sit here and write about how I've discovered myself and done everything I needed to do to get on the right path and become the person I wanted to be when I go off to college. I haven't.
Yes, I've recognized some things in me that I didn't like and I have been working to overcome that. Just rereading my past blog posts like, "too many best friends" and "my new year's resolution" I've realized how I've stuck to my word and began standing up for myself. If you haven't read those, in both I discuss my lack of boundaries in friendships and how I never speak up when something is bothering me out of fear that my feelings won't be respected. I talked about how I wanted to change that, and I have--through actions. I point you towards the very cliche saying, "actions speak louder than words." Recently, I've ended a friendship where my feelings weren't being respected. I spoke up about something and was meet with defense, insensitivity, and invalidation. I was grappling with the decision and it was very hard for me to do, I still go over it in my head. I want to write a post about it, but I think I should wait until I've really sat with it. Anyways, I bring that up to say that reinventing yourself is not easy. It is not always fun. I was friends with that person for a long time, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I know what I want, I know how I feel, and I know what's best for me, even if it means making hard decisions.
You're doing it wrong if you're not losing something in the process. We can all sit in the mirror and therapize (I'm making it a word) ourselves and think that because we did that the process is complete. That's what I did. True change comes with sacrifice, and if you really want to reinvent yourself you're gonna have to let some things go and deal with the feelings that come with that.
I think reinventing yourself is about finding the best parts of yourself from over the course of your life and choosing what you need in this moment of life. I've said this in many of the scholarship essays I've written this year (I wanna upload some, would that be cool?), and its that I don't believe life to be linear. Meaning, it's not as a straight line with an end goal in sight, and once you reach that goal you've won; because if you think about it, what happens after you reach the goal? Life goes on and you keep existing. I think you can have many lives in one life and it's cool to see people who do. That's why when reinventing yourself, you shouldn't live in the future. You are reinventing yourself right now for the life and person you want and want to be RIGHT NOW.
You will never be able to achieve becoming one perfect person combined with all the best parts of yourself. That's not only impossible, but it's boring. In this life, you can be ten different people or more (at different times of course, don't be fake)! Yes, it's important to have a foundation/anchor of who you are--some things will always stay the same, but do you think that once we've "found ourselves" that we're meant to remain stagnant as that one person our whole lives?
At my core, I know who I am, but I never want to reach a place where I feel I've discovered all I can about myself.
Reinventing yourself is not a 1 2 3 one-time process. Our persons are infinite.
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