A lot of people say you don’t find out who “you truly are” until sometime in your thirties. That we are all suppose to be walking around lacking a sense of purpose for almost three decades. To be completely honest, that truth is scary and not the easiest to swallow. It can be hard at eighteen, or even twenty-five, to know what we want out of life. It is difficult to look twenty years ahead and attempt to picture where we see ourselves. Do we want to be a CEO running a company, ordering around our assistant for a skim milk latte? Do we want to be a stay at home mom cooking for moody-teenagers and enjoying “the simple things” in life? Do we want to be adventurous and single, the “cool aunt” that jumps out of airplanes for fun and has exotic pets? When we look twenty years into the future is it also possible that we can’t envision anything at all?
The Wearer of Many Hats
When I was in nursing school I remember talking in class about the many different “roles” we would play after graduation. The point of the lecture was stressing to us that we would have to wear many hats in our lives no longer as undergraduate college students. We would be nurses yes, but also mothers, teachers, grad students, wives, preceptors, etc. They were explaining to us that simply having all these hats would eventually get exhausting. The lecture was building up the anticipation for the burnout to come. When I think about these hats I see in my head a “posh” woman. I see her standing in what looks like a hat store, except in the hat store none are for sale, all the hats belong to her. Some are colorful with beads and feathers, they attract attention when worn and command people to form an opinion about them. Other hats are more subtle and maybe even a little dated, something like a newsboy cap. Even though the hats are outdated, people still take notice of them. Some hats are meant to be worn only for special occasions, like a New Year’s eve party. Those hats have “Welcome 2021” plastered across them, making them useful for only one night out of an entire lifetime of possible hat wearing. The important thing about these hats, stacked up in the dark room is that when they are worn they bring life to their wearer. As the woman in the shop tries to pick her hat she exudes a different type of confidence, almost a new persona with each one. She picks the hat that makes her shine the brightest for that day. The hat that makes her glow the most in the dark room, shining light on all the other hats that are stuck on the shelf. After she picks her hat, she leaves the room and locks the door, walking down the street and leaving all the other hats behind. Those hats aren’t forgotten about but, she can only wear one hat a time. Trying to wear more than one hat at a time would be silly. More importantly, it would make her outfit look overwhelming.
New Chapters
With the uncertainty of our lives many of us face in our twenties what has helped me a little bit is looking at my life as if it were chapters in a book. Some of these chapters are much longer than others, making some of them painfully short. Even so, looking at everything in chapter format is still scary. The thing about book chapters is you usually don’t re-read them. After you have finished reading chapter twenty-two you’re not going to go back to chapter ten to read it just for the heck of it. If you did, it would feel like a waste of time. The read doesn’t feel as exciting when you know turning the page leads to something heartbreaking. However, while penning new chapters, there is nostalgia for the emotions felt when we first started writing the book in the first place…heartbreaks or not. There is anxiety knowing that eventually all chapters have to come to an end, even the one we are just getting comfortable writing. More importantly the book will eventually be big enough and the chapters will be done writing themselves. Which means it’s time to move onto a new book, a huge shift in life that requires a new title and new cover.
Learning From the Falls (or not)
One of the most important things about screwing up, is learning from your mistakes. When you don’t learn from your mistakes (and this happens over and over) eventually you get to the point of wanting to bonk yourself on the head. I can confirm, at least for myself, that the biggest lie we were told is that when you make a mistake you will learn from it. I don’t know if it’s only stubborn people like me, but usually it takes multiple mistakes of the same kind to learn anything in the slightest. And the worst part is, even when I begin to catch on…I still make the same mistakes but this time THINKING I learned something (clearly I didn’t). You’re constantly walking down the a path not paying attention, while knowing the path has a gaping hole in the middle of it. Instead of trying a new path, or god forbid paying attention so you can walk around the hole…you fall into the hole again, and again, and again. Each time you fall into said hole you learn a new way to get out. Getting out becomes a little bit easier each time but, you become rudely aware that the whole point of making mistakes is to learn to not fall in the hole in the first place.
When the Re-invention Doesn’t Stick
The idea of “reinventing” ourselves started when we hit puberty. Most of us went through many phases as teenagers making looking through old photos quite entertaining. I know for me sometime in middle school I decided I was going to be “dark and mysterious”. I wanted to embrace the “punk” crowd I had seen pictures of on the internet. I make the bold choice to drop the “Lynn” in my name and transition to “Rhae” because it sounded cooler. Avril Lavigne was my idol and my clothes, attitude and nail polish showed it. This phase didn’t last long as one can expect. Through high school I went through a few more phases but landed on being the creative and artsy music kid. My clothing wasn’t anything that stuck out but my world consisted of band, singing at church, musicals, etc. The “reinvention” was easy to slip into and most importantly it stuck. It stuck for four whole years leaving me with a solid sense of self. Moving onward to college and adulthood, my “re-inventions” became less about clothing and hobbies and more about relationships and careers. The sense of self that came with a solid romantic relationship was mind blowing, way stronger than my thirteen year old black nail polish. The identity I formed around my various jobs felt comforting. Unfortunately, just like my fashion and attitude phases in my teenage years, these more serious “re-inventions” didn’t always stick either. It feels like a stretch to compare a failed relationship or career change to my middle school emo-phase but for some reason, the stretch seems to stick.
The Roots, The Iceberg, The Unseen
When we talk about the titanic we all know what sunk the ship was the iceberg. The iceberg that was so iconic because it looked small on the surface but was huge under the water, where it could not be seen. I seem to remember learning that ninety percent of the iceberg was underwater making it a massive chunk of ice that no one saw as a threat before it was too late. The power and impact of what was unseen was extraordinary though tragic. When I think about an iceberg this way I also think of a small plant with deep roots. Specifically the weeds that we try to pull out of our gardens but that take much more elbow grease than expected. When we finally get the weed out, we can look at the roots and see that they are ten times longer than the actual plant itself. Again, the power and impact of what is unseen.
I am beginning to realize that the “sense of self” that we have, the feeling of identity and belonging has nothing to do with the things that are seen. The re-inventions don’t matter, the falls are going to keep on happening, we will always have nostalgia about old chapters and having a big hat collection will eventually tire us out. Having a true identity and solid sense of self even means so much more than being sure of where we are going. It means being comfortable in your own head and being excited for all the new chapters, hats and icebergs we will experience. Having something you can say that you believe in no matter where you are or what “phase” you are going through in your life. I also believe it means trusting yourself and your intuition and claiming that as a unique and integral part of yourself.
Okay, my metaphor is over and I have to put down the pen because it is time to switch my hat🎩
Now What? 
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