Do you know who you are yet?
This childfree/childless cat lady is still working it out
Today I am trying to answer a question that the writer Susan Cain put to readers of her newsletter,
, this week.I would love to know your thoughts on the question, which (slightly paraphrased by me) is:
Have you reached the point of being who you truly are? Or are you still pretending?
(If you don’t know
’s work, she is the author of the bestselling book ‘Quiet – The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking,’ and her TED talk on introverts has been watched more than 30 million times. Susan, if you’re reading this, I hope you don’t mind that I’m writing a whole post based on the question you posed. It’s such a good one!)I love this question. And the short answers are No, I haven’t reached the point of being who I truly am, and Yes, I am still pretending. We all pretend, right?
We all unconsciously created strategies for survival/success in childhood: if I keep quiet and do what I’m told my parents won’t tell me off/if I talk loudly and dominate the conversation someone in this family will listen/if I’m the joker who makes everyone laugh I’ll get attention – and these strategies morph into our personalities as adults.
We all continue to do these things - whatever they are - to get by, and for many people the strategies appear to work to a greater or lesser extent.
As you know, The Honesty Box is about trying to be open about life, as a single, childfree/childless middle-aged woman, and as this person I continue to try to work out who I truly am. I sometimes have a sense of ‘now what’? What am I going to do with this huge freedom I unexpectedly have? What will I do all day?
What is my purpose since I don’t have the life I thought I might at this age? Where do I fit?
This is not to say that I think people who are parents have suddenly become who they truly are by procreating – far from it: the question of whether you’ve got to the point of being 100% yourself is an existential one for everyone.
I know who I would like to be more of: Text Lucy. She is my alter ego who says what she’s really thinking and doesn’t censor herself, who knows her worth and doesn’t care much about what other people think.
Text Lucy was christened by my friends C and J when they noticed how sassy and direct some of my text messages were in our group chats. Text Lucy isn’t a bitch, she’s simply very good at asking for what she wants – and she definitely knows who she is.
The truth is, I sometimes find it hard to ask for what I want, to say what I’m thinking. I still use a ‘keep quiet’ strategy if I’m listening to a discussion among friends and I fear my opinion will rock the boat, or worry that if I do start to speak I’ll mess up the words somehow.
I’ve always had a rich inner life, where I daydream and think, and overthink (I do not think this is bad - mostly my overthinking is ‘deep curiosity’ - ha), and ideas about things I want to write about or do pop into my head and I have to jot them down in the Notes app (one day I’ll post some of those notes).
Susan Cain talks about having a deep self-acceptance of who and how she is, someone with a ‘quiet, solitude-seeking nature,’ yet says that sense sometimes eludes her in certain environments, and she feels frustration when it does.
For me, that frustration sometimes comes out in my thoughts as: ‘But why can’t I contribute to this conversation/hold forth in a group situation/captivate these people at the party with my amazing chat?’
The fact is, we’re all different, and in some situations we’ll feel comfortable and in others we won’t. I know that my true self comes out more clearly in one-to-one chats with friends than in bigger groups. And that’s OK. And the older I get, the more accepting I am about myself, and this includes being childfree/childless. And I’m also more accepting that on some days I’ll be delighted to feel single and carefree, and on others I won’t.
How about you? Are you yet being your true self, or are you pretending? I’d love to know!
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