Change.

How does change happen?

Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

It's the boiling frog thing. You fall into these patterns of being and you just... be. Days and weeks and months and years pass and something happens to shake you out of the slumber of a predictable life.

Katie, Renee, and me.
Trying on a young and free identity that one time we sat on Vanilla Ice's lap. 

At least, I hope something happens to shake you.

And I hope you have someone to hold onto when that happens. In fact, I hope you have lots of someones. You will need other people.

The Fab 5: Chelsea, Courtney, Kim, Gretchen, and Amanda
Navigating the undergrad years and falling into ways of being. 

My pattern has been achiever. Pleaser. The rule was: DO NOT DISAPPOINT. Perform. Be amazing at all the things, all the time. Impress. Make them wonder how you do it. Don't let them see you scramble. Don't feel.

Dr. Achiever
Identity quest achieved! (Spoiler alert: not really)

In many ways, it served me well, achieving. And it's taken me a while, but I'm starting to be able to appreciate that part of me - Achiever Chelsea. I can give her a pat on the head and a smile and nod to say, "Hey, nice job, but I'm ready to try on something else for a while." I'm ready to get out of this particular pot of boiling water. This is progress, because if you'd asked me a few months ago what I thought of Achiever Chelsea, I could talk forever about how much I hated her, how she held me back and arrested my emotional development, how she clung to this promise that happiness and fulfillment were just around the next bend... but then every time I got there it turns out there was another mountain to climb and I was left chasing these things.

You might say I'm a touch analytic, so I thought it would only work to start at the very beginning when trying to sort this all out. Well, I guess I didn't exactly think of it all by myself. (Did you really think you were going to read an entire post without mention of therapy?!)

There are reasons for this pattern, this way of being. I'm starting to touch them, in therapy, and my psyche is kind enough to let me know I've gotten close to something meaningful when I feel this immediate wave of fatigue and confusion. It's so physical and overwhelming. I can't quite articulate these reasons in a coherent way here, but I get glimpses of them.

***

Kieran, Evelyn, and Anthony being who they are.
"When I was three, I was hardly me. When I was four, I was not much more."
- A. A. Milne - 

On the drive home from Kansas, Evelyn woke up in the wee hours of the morning to suddenly, urgently, ask me, "Mommy, is it okay if we be a fox family now?" Yes, Evelyn. It's more than okay. And she went back to sleep. 

It is incredible to watch children, to really see them. They can try on a different identity every hour.

It can also be infuriating for adults. We're so wedded to control, consistency, predictability. How can you set appropriate limits for a baby fox one minute and tame a lion the next? 

Yet if we can hold our tongues and step back and see this process of becoming. 

This unfolding right in front of us. 

Spectacular. 

Portrait of a Chelsea as a young girl. 

So, depending on how much sleep we've had, we're forgiving of children as they try on ways of being. At our best, we join in with them and celebrate their identities. We try not to constrain. How much will the angry three-year-old has! How earnest the burgeoning kindergartner. We welcome changes in demeanor.

But for adults, not so much.

Well, perhaps I should speak only for myself, but I started to notice that I was feeling stuck in my identity. I was resenting Achiever Chelsea. I got a nice dose of impostor syndrome (Who says grad school never gives you anything!), and I found myself bumping into the limitations in how I interacted with people and with myself. I started to realize how much stock I put in other peoples' opinions of me, and I started to realize how little that matters. We, as a culture, like to wave a flag that says in big block letters, "Be Yourself!" Maybe that's a case of protesting too much, methinks. Because in practice we don't like nonconformists. We like to think we know each other, we can predict what other people will do.

I'm not saying I'm a nonconformist. Whoa, whoa, no. [read: LIKE ME!]

I'm just saying I see it in my work and in myself, that we as a society quite enjoy keeping one another limited in our identities.

So you're with family at Christmas and you mention something about getting a tattoo, and there it is. This subtle shift. Tattoos are not what we think you would do. We do not like tattoos. We do not like you to be what we do not expect you to be. What is wrong with you? 

You're at work and you've been the quiet, hard-working one with his head down and then one day you say no, or you ask for the promotion you were promised. Assertiveness is not what we think you would do. We need you to be the one who will do more work and not compain. We do not like you to be what we do not expect you to be. What is wrong with you? 


And that's where you see it. That's the sign that things are working.

You're stretching your wings, you're becoming.

You are welcome to change, and I am welcome to change, and none of us need permission to do it.