Who Are You?

Who Are You?

How do you decide who you are?

How do you decide who you are when who you are is constantly changing?

You may start out as a daughter or son, devotedly hoping and seeking the love and attention of a parent or a parental figure. Then, suddenly you realize that you are separate from that figure, that in some unfathomable way, they have a life that is separate from you. You realize that someday you will separate from them and exist on your own.

Perhaps at that exact moment, when you have realized that you are and are not a part of them, you see that some parts of them just do not fit with some parts of you. Its like a puzzle piece that has pieces that don’t exactly fit some other puzzle pieces. Where there is a dip, you might have a bump.

Perhaps in real life you can fit the bump and the dip together and be left with a smooth enough fit to be functional. But what about when you have a dip on both pieces and a bump on both pieces. There is just not a fit to be made. Constant shifting and smoothing and adjusting does not create a smooth surface.

Love for yourself or hate for yourself can depend a lot on the dips and bumps of your pieces. You are still seeing yourself as a part of your parents and continue seeking the love, attention and now approval that could bring smoothness and “fit”! This may be the first time you actually thought about how you fit with those around you, those you loved. It did not much matter if they were parent, friends or significant others. You were you, and that was a startling thought!

Now that you can conceive of yourself as a separate entity, you begin to think about how you are a member of a group, a pack. Perhaps a pack of neighborhood kids, a pack of teammates, a pack of junior high kids, a pack of high schoolers or of young adults. And then you started to think about just who you were in that pack. Were you the leader, the mindless follower, the outlier, the never-fit-in-er, the copier? With luck and self-reflection and a growing maturity, you either sought a pack you fit into, just as you were, or morphed into something that was accepted by your desired pack. Either way, for good or ill, you were a pack member.

If you chose to be the loner that never felt you fit in with being a part of a pack, was it because you realized that the pack was transient, and perhaps a transient vision of yourself? Finding a pack that your bumps and dips fit into may have been a point of redemption to who you were, or a point of damnation and self-loathing. Regardless, holding the pack mentality for too long and too tightly could inhibit growth as an individual and exploration of new and amazing images of yourself. Holding onto the pack could thwart finding out just who you were!

Just as you escaped permanently bonding to the fit between you and your family, and you and a newly discovered pack, you began to visualize a new image of yourself. You were the complement to a partner…and other! The need to be known by someone, accepted as you were, and completed by another loomed large. You began to see yourself as yet another part of who you were. You were a partner, a significant other to one other human.

Seeking first the love and attention of a parental figure, then the acceptance of a pack gradually became overshadowed by the love, acceptance and inclusion of another. Meeting all your needs in one person, what a rush that was! But it came with a risk. Losing that connection is close to the feeling of losing your heart and self-image in one fell swoop. It could be agonizing, painful, debilitation, crushing, and self-image damaging all at the same time. Suddenly you were cast adrift, redefining yourself, looking for who you were all at the same moment. Certainly not something to be sought, but it happens. Sometimes repeatedly. Those dips and bumps just do not always fit together forever! How much soul crushing, self-image destroying can one person take before scars cover all the tender spots and effect all the dips and bumps that must fit together?

Time can heal all wounds and you became a hyphenated version of yourself. Just as you reinvented yourself from Child, pack member, partner, significant other, a new version immerged. You may now be a friend-parent, partner-coparent, wife-mother, husband-father, significant other-provider. Or what ever the new situation calls for. That original title of child-seeking-parental-love has now morphed to a new primary situation where some smaller being is now looking to you for love and acceptance. But this too shall change! The cycle of reinvention and title change goes on. Who you are may now hold the title of single parent, relationship seeker, caretaker, decision maker, the grownup-in-the-room. All may be titles you hold. How about orphan, empty nester, solo traveler. Transitions can be hard. Changing titles can be challenging, but they are inevitable and as such, predictable. Nothing is as consistent as change.

Days are short, and long. Time drags and speeds by. Dips and bumps fit, grow deeper and break apart. Nothing is as sure as the change that affects it all. Success in the face of change depends on the ability to adapt and know who you are in changing circumstances. Perspective tells you that it comes full circle. It is a variable landscape. Uninterrupted smoothness may not be perpetual or even ever present. Constant adaptation is the rule, not the exception. The journey through life and the constant change in the title you call yourself leads to an accumulation of titles and definitions of who you are. Ultimately defining who you are leads to the joy of exactly who you are and the enjoyment of where you are now. At least that can be the goal! Through all the reinvention and change in titles and self-description, you have discovered just who you are. You are not one thing. You do not hold just one title or play just one role. As you move through life and grow in each new role, you have, however, become one thing.

You have become more you!