I was somewhere once listening to two people talk amongst themselves about their confusion about what people mean when they say, “I want to be my real self.” It was as if that statement didn’t compute for them. I listened to them, in utter disbelief. How could they not know that feeling? I’m happy for them. I’m also jealous.
I had a teacher say once that we don’t really have a real self, we have a conglomeration of selves. That feels right to me. The sickly sweet smiley person I was in our old home videos is the same person who sits at the computer and writes this post with a touch of bitterness in her voice. Both me.
There are some of us who know the deep yearning in that statement, “I want to be my real self.” Once you notice yourself saying one thing and thinking another, and you see how automatic it is for you to abandon yourself over and over and over again and not be able to change the pattern no matter how hard you try, you are in a specific version of hell. It felt easier when you didn’t have the awareness that you were doing it.
I don’t really know why I decided to sit down and write this today. It’s been almost two years since I posted here. I’ve been wanting to post but kept overthinking it.
I guess there’s a self in my conglomeration that is just so fucking done making myself palatable because I know now that my internalized beliefs about what is “palatable” aren’t even true. I also know now that no one really cares that much what I say or do, it just feels that way – which is the sad and wonderful truth about self-expression.
It’s been an interesting couple of years. One kid started high school, one started college – Mom and Dad have been doing the hard but necessary work of stepping back and letting go (harder for Mom). We got another dog, which was both a terrible and fantastic idea. I started an MFA program for writing. We’re still living back and forth between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. I learned how to make candles and sold some and got to help my brother make a holiday light experience at his farm which brought people so much joy.
And I’ve been doing the work of getting my conglomeration to feel more like the real me. So that’s probably why I wrote this today. I had something on my mind and I said it. Imagine that.
Pam Moore Gainer 