Do We Ever REALLY Change?
In many ways, in most ways actually, I will never be able to outgrow, hide, dress-up, leave behind, run-away from, expel, crush, destroy… or in any way separate myself from the sixteen year old kid I once was. That has definitely not stopped me from trying though. I have always thought that if I could make lots of money and wear fancy clothes and drive a nice car and live in an exclusive neighborhood I could “hide” the person I know that I am. After 43 years on this Earth, I know that I will not ever be able to “hide” anything and I also have come to know that I will never be able to “separate” myself from who I am. The really crazy part, at least to myself, is that any success and contentment I am going to experience in this life is totally dependent on the paralyzingly terrified teenager I have always been.
The other day I was looking through this blog to see how many posts I have written. Turns out… A LOT! But I found the words in the paragraph above that I began almost NINE YEARS AGO but never finished… I would like to finish them now, because they definitely made me think. In the years since I wrote the paragraph above, I have “done” A LOT of “work” on myself… and I THINK/HOPE made myself a better person. But have I? Really? In the most important ways, the most essential ways, the ways that contribute most greatly to who I am and how I make my way through this world… have they changed? Have “I” changed? Really changed… or am I still the same terrified, desperate, somewhat hopeless 16 year old I have always been, just with a few more toys and a little more money to hide behind? At this point, in the state I am currently in… I HONESTLY can not answer this question.
I BELIEVE I am a “better” person. I truly believe I have “improved” since writing those opening words. BUT… if I am honest, TRULY HONEST, I SEE myself VERY CLEARLY, too clearly actually, in those opening words. Almost nine years have passed… and what IF I am still the same? What IF there has been no real improvement? No real change? All the “work” has just been part of the “show?” Just one more layer trying to hide the person I have always been? I am sorry if you came to this blog looking for some answers… I don’t have them… not today at least! I am on my own search… seeking out my own answers… to a question I see as vital to who I am, who I have always been, and to whom I have any aspirations of ever becoming. I am just going to leave it at that… I simply wish each of us only the best in such searches and pursuits.