Changes

 Fall is my favorite season. 

All the seasons are my favorite, honestly. But fall is the best. 😁 I often describe myself as liking the changes between seasons, more than any of the seasons themselves. And every year. I think that's true... until fall comes around and then I suddenly feel like myself again. Give me sweaters, flannels, boots, and beanies. Give me warm lattes, foggy mornings, sunny afternoons, and crunchy leaves.

Fall and IKEA always remind me that I'm actually a basic white girl. 😅 What can I say, if we all like these things, maybe it's cuz we all have good taste.

I'm not sure what it is about certain things that bring such a sense of identity, and why change can affect that so strongly. A couple of posts ago, I mentioned cutting my hair. Recently I cut it again, and got a nose piercing about a week later. Friends were super sweet and supportive, and I got a few interesting questions. "Do you love it?" "Do you feel more free?" "Do you feel more like yourself?"

Yes? No? I'm not entirely sure.

It's not like I wasn't myself before. And I don't feel suddenly different or less stifled, or even like my hair is easier to work with. I wasn't feeling dysphoric or inauthentic or controlled, exactly. However, I was, and probably always will be, very concerned about how others would feel about how I look.

I've wanted to have a pixie cut to wear with beanies basically since I started wearing beanies. I've wanted a nose ring for almost a year? And I just haven't done these things. It's not that I wasn't being myself a year ago, it's that I was slightly trying not to stand out. Maybe because I naturally stand out in ways I don't always want to, with my arms. 

Also... I dunno, I don't want people to think badly of my family. Like my parents somehow "failed" because both their children are non-conventional in different ways. So I tend to just not do all the things I know I want to. 

The main person that stifles my sense of self... is sometimes myself.

So! Do I feel suddenly liberated, or in love with my hair, or otherwise drastically different?!? 

No.

But I do wake up every morning and feel cute.

Look at this fun, joyful being!!

And I look at this person that I would dream of becoming... and she's me. She has cute hair and a nose ring in just the right spot and she has supportive friends and a really sweet boyfriend and... and she's me.

Some days that takes longer to set in than it does on others.

Some days it doesn't feel special. A lot of days lately, I'm too tired for anything to feel special. But even on a lot of those days... I wake up and feel cute. And maybe that's what people mean. 

There's been no big dopamine rush or sense of novelty. I just feel like me. And I think that's all I'm meant to feel like right now. Life is a bit of a slog lately. I don't have much energy, I don't have much money, and I'm not having many adventures. I'm just trying to live with each day, letting it be what it is. And hopefully in that, I can learn to let me be what I am, too. 

Whatever God wants that to look like, I guess. I don't think I'll ever be anything earth-shattering. When I was younger, I wanted to be. I wanted to be a big deal, I wanted to change people's lives! Maybe that's what happens when grown-ups call you an "inspiration" all the time. 😅

But as I've gotten older (not by much yet, but you know) I've kinda... gotten a sense of what brings meaning and purpose to my life. What calls to me. 

It's very (annoyingly) traditional.

I want to make people feel safe and wanted. 

I want to provide a home for others to find respite in.

I want to bring God's sense of adoption into the world- I want to accept and nurture others.

I want to build community. Somewhere I belong, as well.

I want to sustain myself and maybe others. To grow food and raise animals, to cook and can and butcher and preserve....

I want to be a partner and a mother figure.

I want home and family, whatever that may look like. 

I like all these things now. But I didn't always. I had a slight identity crisis when I first realized that a lot of my personal skills, values, and interests lie very heavily in the homemaking category. Culturally, that's what I've always been "supposed" to do. So I questioned all of it. 

"Is this really me and my interests, or is this just what I was raised for?" "Am I settling because I don't think I could do anything else with my life?" "Do I want this because it's familiar, a path of less resistance?"

Also...

I just don't like being told what to do and who to be. 😅 Autonomy and independence are incredibly important to me, and if I were to end up walking someone else's path, I think it would rot me from the inside out.

So after much poking, prodding, deliberating, and a fair amount of young adult angst...

I think this is just who I am.

Right now I think I'm someone who has cute hair, and a nose ring in just the right spot, and supportive friends, and a really sweet boyfriend; and I think I'm someone who wants to have a garden and a home and kids running around and I think I'm someone who's just... me.

Whatever that is.

~Dolly