Before You Knew Me

How long have you been you?

I'm not sure it is an easy question to answer. And yet a friend wonders tonight how someone he thought he knew so well, could be someone he can hardly recognize these days. She's changed, he said. A polar opposite of the girl he knew. And he wonders why?

Why the change? Why have the ideals they once shared been lost? And who can this girl possibly be that's taken her place? And how can he still be exactly who he is?

How did the change occur?

Did it happen all at one time or was it so gradual he didn't have a chance to notice it? When did she cease to care about the important things that really mattered? When was we replaced with I? When was I replaced with someone else?

How would I answer that question?

I am who I am when I am me without pretentiousness, without false pride, without walls, without a mask to conceal what I choose to hide. I can be defined by adjectives and in turn I define each one. But I am more than words. More than mere ideals. More than a painting to be observed hanging on a wall.

And we are all like that. Though from time to time, those adjectives can change, those ideals can be replaced and the picture on the wall becomes a photographic memory of what was, rather than what is. All in constant motion subject to growth and change.

And so we choose for a while to represent different ideals, finding our foothold and ascending further with the choice we've made. But around us we watch as other fall, pulling back down to go in a new direction. A direction that maybe we ourselves would not be one to choose.

And so we look around wearing shocked expressions on our faces as if we cannot comprehend this new bump in the road, this change in plans that stops us cold on our climb up the mountain.

How long we rest is determined by each one of us. Do we wait to see if our partner changes their mind? Do we go on alone? Do we question our own journey if someone else decides to pursue another path? What do we do when the decision has been made for us?

Knowing who you are is a gift. You've found your place, you know your nitch. You can say this is who you are and this is what you believe in. And you can live your life by those beliefs.

And maybe she's not as lucky as you. Maybe she just doesn't know who she is. Maybe she tried you on for size, stayed a while and made a home, and then decided that no, it wasn't really for her. Maybe she's made a bad choice, maybe she'll come to find that those ideals she's lost are the ones she wished she held on to. But maybe she'll find a whole new way of life that's all her own. And maybe this is a lesson you've both been meant to learn for the longest time.

I cannot tell you why people change, they simply do. But we too must change with them, even if it means being on a different page in a different book in different parts of the world.

(I hope this helps at least a little.)