VERSIONING (A WORD SEARCH)

 

Ya'll know that I think and play with metaphors all the time right?

The way I experience the world is

all wrapped up in pictures and imagery inside my head and 

then I use words to make sense of it.

I don't know how to speak or think in a straight line with words first.

The process of putting words to those images often

helps land the idea more fully-

it takes it from knowledge to wisdom; 

from fictional to concrete somehow.

Sometimes I wrestle with a metaphor for months or years

before I understand it enough to put words around it.

Today's weird image revolves around versions of a person.

Who are we and when does the idea of personal growth

or maturity feel insufficient to describe our lived experience?

I've been sitting pretty regularly with the notion

that there are different incarnations of a person

within this actual lifetime that might be so 

different from previous incarnations that they

look almost as if a wholly different person is present

compared to the same physical entity from a previous point in time.

And that word salad is why this is taking me so long to unpack.

I don't have language to describe this succinctly.

Here's my shortest effort:

Is the 'me' that is alive and moving through the world

the same 'me' that was alive a decade ago?

My personal response to that question is NO.

There have been multiple times where I have been made new.

I don't know if reborn is the right description

but it doesn't feel wrong necessarily either.

The best way I can think about this is by using lego kits.

Many of the same pieces are there-

same human, same social security number,

same parents and lived experience.

But they've all been rejiggered and moved around

so that the function and action of the pieces

is altered completely.

I don't really know what to call this process

but I have lived through it at least two times now

after I reached adulthood.

It's more than maturation.

In both cases, who I was before

died/ceased to exist/was transformed

so that something else could

be present/thrive/exist.

I can remember those versions

but I can't ever be them again.

I can understand that earlier version of myself-

what motivated her, what scared her,

the precious altars of hopes and dreams and shame

that she protected at all costs.

But I am so fundamentally different than her

that it feels like walking through the life of a 

beloved friend.

For example, I'd like to submit the version of me from my twenties.

I was an adult-a fully realized incarnation of myself.

I had a career, dreams for my life, relationships,

partnerships and a mortgage.

I had enough lived experience that I wasn't naïve,

I had tools to navigate the world, and 

a fairly strong identity.

I lived successfully as that version of myself

for around a decade or so.

Through an intense series of circumstances

and experiences, I became something else.

Something new and different than I had been before.

In that case I became a mother.

And it altered me so irrevocably that 

all my decisions and perspective changed.

How I saw the world, 

the level of compassion and 

the foundation of all my decisions was different.

I was a whole person before I became a mother.

I was a whole person after I became a mother.

I was not the same person though.

Now lots of people talk about how impactful

becoming a parent is on their character

or their perspective.

Surely that's just maturity or growth right?

I respectfully disagree.

I have definitely grown since I became a mother-

rounded out my edges, navigated new challenges

and added some layers.

But the version of me that is a mother

also lost some elements that were essential

to that earlier incarnation.

It's like a bit of me cracked off and 

fell into the big lego bin

to be repurposed.

I can see why the twenty-something me

needed those bits and I'm not altogether sure

why they no longer fit in with this new version.

They just didn't and I couldn't make them.

When I think about them, I don't feel sorrow

or longing for that version of myself.

It just was time for that version to be revised

and some of the edits had to be harsh

to allow the new version to function.

Each time I've gone through this

I've inverted my life-

turned it upside down and inside out.

Like an episode of hoarders

everything has to come out onto

the front lawn before I can decide if anything

at all is useful for who I want to become.

I've sometimes had help dragging all my

crap out onto the veritable front lawn of my life.

And yet every single choice for what

gets carried forward is on me so that 

I can create a revision.

When I try and put words around this

it feels sort of maniacal-

like I just got up one morning and decided to change

lives like someone changes clothes.

I keep trying to come up with words for this 

process and they all fall somewhat short.

Is it a mid-life crisis?

A makeover?

A stroke?

A mental illness?

Why do all of those words

pull up such a negative feeling?

Every time this has occurred

it has been painful

but also essential and necessary.

It's not a surface level transformation

and it occasionally requires professional help.

There are real shifts in identity, opinions,

perspective and ultimately-

changed actions; consistent behavior modification.

Is there some incredible German or Greek

word that supports this?

I'm a little too self-centered

right now to try and explore it

with intention so if you know

please DM me the insight.

I find myself wondering lately whether I'm 

experiencing another of these major revisions

right now.

I have been profoundly impacted

by my lived experience of the past 2 years.

Am I about to experience a new inversion

and the resulting revision?

Or am I experiencing a profound season of growth?

One thing is for sure-

I won't really know until after the fact

when I can reflect on it.

Maybe by then, I'll have a single word to describe it-

this way of taking a whole, complete person

down to the raw materials 

and then building them back up into 

a completely new configuration.

Until then, I'll just keep wrestling with lego analogies.