Trying on various versions of yourself in the company of different people is a standard human experience. Every time I’ve looked to someone for advice on the subject, I’ve been told that, especially as a woman starting her 20s, there’s no issue with it. Whether it manifest itself through your extroversion, fashion choices, interests and hobbies, likes and dislikes, choice of words… It’s all a journey of trial and error until you find what resonates most, and soon enough you know exactly who you are and what you want. I can imagine that, once you have this immovable sense of self, you can decide things like who to stop seeing and what to stop doing with a considerably larger amount of ease… But if it’s possible to go through the motions of trying on new versions of yourself without even a shred of who lies at the bottom of it all; with not even a skeleton of an idea of who you want to be in the first place, then that must be what I’ve been doing all this time.
When I get back home after spending time with anyone, I can expect one of two outcomes: either, I feel uplifted and full, like my time has been spent well, or, I feel empty and unimpressive.
If it is the former, I find myself clutching to the facets of our relationship that make me feel fulfilled, and looking to recreate them in everything I do to constantly feel that high. It’s like good food or a really memorable holiday, you chase it once it’s over, but it’ll never be the same as it once was. No two things are (and that’s a good thing)!
But if it’s the latter, I dissect every reason it went wrong; hold it under a microscope. How can I ensure I’ll never feel that way again?
These things feel like the make up of me, not my ambitions, likes and dislikes, career etc… I live by them like commandments, trying to make every day absolutely perfect and dodging anxious or unwanted feelings when I see them coming. But all of this is too weak and shallow and trivial to lay down the foundations of a human being. It’s an unreliable steering wheel when you’re sat with somebody who is so sure of themselves, or at least appears to be, and all you are capable of becoming is a mirror. Liking what they like; hating what they hate; only disagreeing or appearing to have your own mind when you remember mid-conversation that people like people with something new to say. What I am saying is, I wish it was instinct or default to say exactly what I think and feel, and to consistently be the most sincere version of myself without even having to go by a reminder. Once I’m conscious of the fact I’ve been performing, everything becomes a performance.
The relationships I cherish most are the ones that make me forget entirely that that issue even exists.
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