You Can Be Who You Want
I’ve been having conversations lately around regret. I feel grateful that it is not something with which I struggle. I don't often go back to past decisions and say, "If only..."
My regrets are more on a momentary basis rather than consistently. I suppose I regret eating whole bags of gummy bears, and spending six euros on a hair tie that broke immediately, and wasting time reading three-quarters of a book I didn’t like (*ahem: Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You?)
Yet, within these conversations about regret, I might say that the biggest regret I have is not embracing one thing a little bit sooner in life:
You don’t have to be who you always were.
You are allowed to be whoever you want, whenever.
I’ve been told many stories about who I am. I have also told myself many stories about who I am. I’ve been told that I’m talented, smart, deserving. That I'm special, funny, awkward, and great. I’ve also been told that I’m angry, spoiled, and messy. I’ve told myself I'm undeserving, not enough, too much, or too little. I've also told myself I'm learning, growing, changing. I have many facets, many roles, many feelings, but the most important thing to me is that I get to decide who I am.
Today I watched the weather roll in. The horizon was stormy and scary, but the weather report said no rain until after one pm. Nature didn't listen. Those clouds came in fast, dark, and with a roar. Then came the rain. Nature changes, nature chooses, nature paves its own path.
I wish I could share the freedom that comes with knowing you can be who you want to be, and you never have to be only one thing. That if you were once upset, you do not have to be now. If you have always been neat, tidy, organized, you're allowed to be messy. If you are pleasant and smiley, you can also be angry and frustrated or sad. If you say you are enough, you are. No one can take that away.
When I attended the University of Gastronomic Sciences for a Master's program in 2014, I enrolled in a course called Food Culture and Communication. I loved writing, I loved communicating. I thought this would be a good fit. Yet when we had a food writing class with Corby Kummer, senior editor at the Atlantic, he asked for a show of hands who considered themselves to be a writer. Very few people raised their hands. I was not one of them.
It felt scary to say I was a writer. I didn't imagine that as part of my identity. Sure, I liked writing, but was a really a writer? I think back on that experience now, having written consistently for 9 months, small things read by few people (thank you lovely readers!) and still might not call myself a writer. But why not? It's my choice and maybe, right now, I might just raise that hand (halfway?).
Through coaching, it has been a joy to see how others discover their whole selves. How they investigate what parts of their identity they deem worthy and valuable, and what parts can be overlooked or under-celebrated. It's even more exciting to see what happens when we pick apart the stories we've been told about ourselves: by our best friends, partners, parents, teachers, employers, colleagues...but mostly, from our own thoughts. Eventually, we start realizing that our words give us the power to choose who we want to be, in any given moment.
So whatever the weather is predicting, whatever you've been told or told yourself, you're still allowed to be whoever you want, whenever you want, and that person can be many things.
Wishing you a beautiful week ahead! Hoping for a little sunshine over here for one last swim AND a sighting of Antonio Banderas (they're filming Indiana Jones in Cefalu!)
Say hi anytime,
Henna