I moved back to my hometown after living a pretty amazing 15 years away in many different places.  I left my hometown as sort of a misfit, definitely uncool and not sure of who I was.  I sailed off to the Navy for four years, through relationships and friendships with amazing people, through 13 cities in 9 years, through college, and the opportunities that followed and all of those things eventually led me back to my roots.  I think I needed to bring it full circle in a way…to go back to the place where my journey began. I wanted to be married here and to have my baby here. The Black Hills have always been special to me. To me this place has always felt like my favorite sweatshirt on a Saturday; a place of easy familiarity and comfort.  

So, here I am. I’ve got a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby, a wonderful home, and a challenging career. I’m pretty much living the dream, right?   I am living the dream. I am truly “soles of my feet” happy.  However, one thing baffles me.  Ok, there are way more things that baffle me, but I want to talk about this particular thing. It seems to me and in more than one instance and with more than one person….I have changed.  I have gone away and had all of these amazing experiences and really come into my own. I have become what I feel is a woman of strength, courage and determination. I have had diverse friends and lived in cities. I have sailed the ocean blue.  Yet, it would seem that after all of that and coming back here….sometimes I’m perceived as who I was when I left. 

Let me illustrate.  I went to a funeral recently for a high school friend’s mother.  I was actually in a pretty serious car accident with this girl in high school and therefore had great respect and affection for her mother.  Anyway, I felt compelled to attend. It was a lovely service.  I was in the church lobby after the service and there were 2 girls (I guess we’re ladies now) who I also went to school with.  I was nowhere near their level of cool in high school and never included in their reindeer games for certain. Anyway, one of the girls comes up to me and very snottily said “what’s your name?”…I stammered and answered her and told her my maiden name and that we went to the same high school, They both sort of looked at me and clearly did not remember me in the least.  In that moment, I was 17 again and uncool. I was insecure, not pretty enough to be alive, and self conscious. I was actually transformed into someone I didn’t recognize…instantly.  

I wish I could say that this is the only time this has happened to me. It isn’t.  I have experienced this very phenomenon with family members, and other people who essentially knew me and remember me as someone other than the person I am today.  What is this called? How do I keep being the me I am today when confronted with someone else’s rendition of a “me” they knew in another era of my life? This has everything to do with change and people’s perceptions.  Are perceptions reality? I’m not through the woods on this one yet and I would appreciate any comments. I’m very bothered by the whole experience at the funeral. I cried all the way home from that funeral and I don’t know why.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Life's Transitions, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.