I wrote the following on a fb post recently:
…there are aspects of my life I want to change, that I NEED to change for my health and sanity, but are also deeply ingrained as parts of my identity. I have had to let go of so much that I didn’t want to lose, that it is tough to purposefully change what I have left.
It’s the source of a lot of resentment in my life, actually. I don’t want to be fat, but I’m “the fat girl.” I want to be athletic, but I’m “the anti-exercise” girl. I want to dance beautifully, but I’m “the uncoordinated girl.” I want to be healthy, but I’m the “chocolate and beer girl.” I want to give up sugar but if I’m not an ice-cream connoisseur, who am I?
I’ve dwelled on this a lot lately as I’ve looked at the spectacular failure of trying to make fundamental changes in my lifestyle. If the definition of insanity is taken as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, then I’m certifiably a lunatic nutso crazy-pants tin-hatter.
Basically, I tend to fail at some things because not because i don’t have willpower (I arguably do), but because those changes, however desirable, go against the grain of my self-perception. Some would say, “well you don’t want it enough” and yeah, I think that’s true, but I don’t think it really hits hard enough at the core of the emotional tsunami that overwhelms me when I attempt to make those changes.
Basically, I want to be a completely different person.
I don’t think that’s something our brains approve of much. Personal growth? Sure! Learning new things? Why not! Turn into a completely different person? WHAT THE HELL NO WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH U
Ironically I gained some perspective on this from a story I read a few weeks ago. In it, a guy from what was an apocalyptic wasteland hit a magical wall on his way to his own death and shifted realities. He’s knocked out of a world where everyone he loves is dead or dying and everything he’s ever lived through is mostly traumatic and terrifying, then wakes up in his own body but in a world where basically nothing bad ever happened to anyone.
Its not an interesting story because “aw he got what he always wanted!” but because he is totally unprepared for that life. He is suddenly not the person people expect him to be. He lets them down and hurts them because he makes decisions and says things that they feel “aren’t really you.” He’s the classic trope, “out of character.” BUT…he doesn’t care. He doesn’t try to adapt and become the version of himself that he replaced. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t even consider being anyone else, and in the end, he’s accepted for the person he’s become.
So I wondered. What if, tomorrow, the me who woke up in THIS body was someone who had lived a different life? What if “her” decisions were just different enough that she was living the life I want to live? What if the athletic, health-nut, trained dancer, published writer version of me woke up in THIS body?
Well she’d be horrified, I’m sure. Probably miss a few days of work because she didn’t know she had a job. No doubt she’d feel exhausted and depressed.
But she’d be trained to *think* differently, to respond differently to challenges, and she’d perceive herself as a much different person than I do.
So I wonder. I think about waking up tomorrow as “a different me.” What would I do? How would I act? What choices would I make, and how would I deal with the fallout?
What if, tomorrow, I become a different person?