Who Are You?

Lately I’ve been finding out interesting facts about the people in my life. Some are people I have just recently met, some are neighbors I have lived near for a decade, some are family members I have known my whole life. All have surprised me with new information about their relationships, hobbies, careers, and experiences. A scuba diver, a talent scout, a collector, an art lover, a dancer, a singer, a survivor. Who would have guessed?

It seems strange that you can know someone without really knowing anything about them, but I guess it’s really not that surprising.

When we are kids in school, we can’t hide much of anything. We spend the majority of our time in close quarters with other kids where our strengths are obvious (math whiz, fast runner, funniest, best singer), and our weaknesses are too (slow reader, badly behaved, last one picked for the team). We tell stories of our families and experiences in writing assignments like “All About Me” pages and weekly journals. We share our favorite items in show and tell. Our interests are broadcast through our participation in various activities in and after school. And any embarrassing facts eventually get revealed by older siblings or bullies or our best friends when they are mad at us.

But once we have grown up and away from the school system, our interests and abilities become less obvious. We focus our energies on building careers and families, and these paths limit the self we show to the world. There isn’t the same array of activities in which we can participate on a casual level. Some athletes may find an occasional pickup basketball game or play softball on their company team, and a few musicians may be able to perform in a local group if they look hard enough. But the primary limitation is time.

Looking back, even those of us with the busiest childhoods can probably now recognize the unappreciated luxury inherent in those days filled with just school and activities all for ourselves. Now with jobs and families to balance, our own interests often have to wait. We befriend those who work in our field or whose children are in class with ours. We keep conversations superficial, censoring ourselves in order not to offend, and spend our time on the sidelines discussing local issues and school schedules, not our dreams and long-hidden talents.

Those of us who gave up careers to stay home with our children can attest to how this choice also serves to narrow our identity. We may have been well-known in our industry, featured as key note speakers, and a favorite to work with, but at the park, we’re just another parent, nothing serving to distinguish us from the others except our physical features.

I remember after leaving the corporate world to stay home with my son, whenever I was asked, “what do you do?” I always started with, “Well, I worked for twelve years as an advertising executive in New York.…” Even though I had become a mom and was also a graduate student, I reverted back to my old title rather than mention my new role. My career had defined me for so long and it brought with it greater stature and more exciting conversation starters than motherhood, and for a long time, it was an identity I couldn’t bear to lose.

Of course, sometimes we want to leave our childhood behind and forge a new identity without being encumbered by the reputations and cliques of our past. Having returned to my hometown, I sometimes cringe when I run into past classmates, finding it difficult to completely erase any bad high school memories while also hoping they don’t have similar memories about me. On the plus side, I am fortunate to have some dear old friends nearby who know me better than anyone, but there is no guarantee that they will keep my secrets!

It was during a gathering with friends old and new that I first began to consider how much of our true selves disappears in our adulthood. When I realized the newer acquaintances had no knowledge of what I would consider the defining talent of my childhood friend, I wondered what we didn’t know about them. But I didn’t ask.

Imagine what I may have learned if I had.