On identity, aging, authenticity, and letting go of roles that no longer fit.
It occurred to me recently that many of us spend a good part of our lives trying on different versions of ourselves.
When we’re young, we don’t really know who we are yet. We only know what fascinates us, what impresses us, what the world rewards, and what kind of people we think we’re supposed to become.
So, we “try on” different lives.
As a kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist because I was obsessed with Jacques Cousteau. At that age, our dreams are often shaped more by whatever currently captures our imagination than by any deep understanding of ourselves.
Later, school starts sorting us into categories. Athlete. Nerd. Popular kid. Theater kid. Rebel. Good student. Slacker. Sometimes those labels fit, and sometimes we simply grow comfortable performing them because other people expect us to.
By high school and college, the costumes become more serious. We choose majors, friend groups, careers, relationships, political beliefs, lifestyles. We begin building identities around what we admire, what feels safe, what earns approval, or what we think success is supposed to look like.
And sometimes we get very good at “performing” a life that doesn’t completely fit us.
When I was a younger married mom of small children, I became “Super Suburban Working Mom,” immersing myself in all the rituals that came with that role– going out to the “latest” new restaurants in the city with other couples in similar socio-economic conditions, taking fancy trips, going to parties. It took me ages – and ultimately a divorce – to understand that wasn’t who I wanted to be or a role I wanted to play. The “Super Mom” role, 100% YES, all day every day. The rest of the part – not so much.
As we grow older, experience has a way of “sanding down” some of those illusions. Careers we once idealized may leave us exhausted. Certain friendships no longer feel authentic. Some ambitions turn out to belong more to our younger ego than to our actual soul.
At the same time, we begin discovering parts of ourselves that were there all along.
Once I realized that I truly did not care how I dressed or how others saw me, I again felt another bolt slipping into place. “I’m not a fashion plate.” “What I wear isn’t important to me. It never was.” Those revelations may not seem special or big or crucial; yet, to me, it was like a weight was lifted off me. I felt more authentically myself with the understanding that other people’s opinions of my clothes simply don’t matter to me anymore. I can instead spend my psychic energy on more weighty matters, like my character.
Not everyone has the luxury of endless self-discovery, of course. Many people spend their lives simply trying to survive, support families, and make it through difficult circumstances. Even so, I think most of us still quietly wrestle with the same questions underneath it all:
Who am I really?
Who do I want to become?
And does the life I’m living actually reflect that person?
One of the gifts of getting older is realizing that we are allowed to evolve. We are allowed to outgrow identities that once seemed to fit us perfectly. We are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to stop performing versions of ourselves that no longer feel true.
I see this happening with my daughters as they build their own lives, and I see it in myself too. At this stage of life, I don’t consider myself a finished product at all. If anything, I’m more aware now of the gap between who I am and who I still hope to become.
Maybe that’s the point.
Maybe growing older isn’t about finally becoming one fixed person. Maybe it’s about gradually letting go of the lives that never really fit in the first place.