Listfulness: a state of experiencing LOTS of energy, enthusiasm, and interest in activities
Listening: "Float On" by Modest Mouse
Reading: Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Watching: TheraminTrees on Youtube
Wanting: Caffeinated gum
Welcome back. I started writing this entry on July 30th, but I have been distracted...drowning in Feminist Literature (learning to hold my current Margaret Atwood with my feet to keep my hands free for bench pressing) and tirelessly hunting down the perfect pair of light-wash baggy jeans, long enough to accommodate my 6'7" frame. If you're still tuning in, I love you and I promise to get a list of my devoted fans' names tattooed as a tramp stamp in Times New Roman 12 pt. font expeditiously.
I write lists to calm down and have for the bigger chunk of my life. A few years ago I was especially weighed down and caught up in identity—fully freaking out about my own, or what felt like a lack of any at all. Appearing to fear a deadline. Brain all loose strings hanging from nowhere, the first half too short to reach any others and begin to connect, the second half dangling and tangling wildly, jumbled up like Christmas lights. I had a habit of asking my friends questions like:
Do you think I'm different from how I was (last year/last month/last week)?
What would you consider my best quality/fatal flaw?
How would you describe me to a stranger?
I don't look at these questions or the person who fixated on them with embarrassment or condescension. Who doesn't want to outsource the grueling task of self-discovery? That shortcut, sweet-plastic, shining fakely. The back-of-the-mind knowing that you're going about it all wrong. Thoroughly unnerving, that.
Enter: A Google Doc—"things i know about myself." The teenage-angst gold contained in the intentionally-lowercased title. The innocence; the noblest of efforts. I would list every single thing that I knew for a fact was true, everything I was sure of. I had typed furiously (for, like, a few minutes) and, feeling satisfied, closed my laptop and promptly forgot about the list's existence until recently.
Years later, stumbling across this definitive document, this List of Me, I was eager to uncover my true essence, what I had considered the most integral parts of my identity...
It began:
"I like chocolate almond milk."
The rest of the list was more or less true, if dull ("I am a writer," "I enjoy vegetables," "I am a planner,") with a few more punchlines dotted throughout:
"I believe in God." (LOL)
"I am bisexual." (Close...)
"I am organized." (Be for real)
Dwelling on the fact that I am capable of knowing something is true about myself, and being wrong. Or changing, I guess. (Knowing that "belief in God" isn't really a "thing about myself" by some people's standards). Expanding that thought—someone can know something, be fully convicted of this knowledge, and be wrong. Two people can know mutually exclusive things. 100 million people can know mutually exclusive things. (Duh, you're thinking, you're just now catching on to this? Not really, but kind of, maybe I've never synthesized the thought. Also, rude.)
Everything I know about myself now, I "know" the same amount as I knew those other things that turned out to be wrong. As in, I still have the capacity to change, like everyone. So why does it feel different? Why does it seem like these current truths are somehow "truer"? Located at new depths, rooted more firmly—intrinsic? Is it simply because I "know" it now and not then? Or is it possible that I've bottomed-out at least certain areas of my identity, and these will remain fixed for the remainder of my life? Is it silly to consider a question that we can never adequately answer? Am I making any ounce of sense?
Of course identity is in constant development. Of course I won't be the same forever. But man, would it calm me down sometimes to have that list.
"Everything is gestation and then bringing forth."
-Rainer Maria Rilke
Abby