I just had a deja-vu experience. My tea kettle was whistling and I went to take it off the element. I suddenly flashed to a moment ten years ago. My friend Diana chiding me for drinking day old steeped tea, explaining the merits of pouring fresh boiling water over a fresh teabag, ignoring my complaints about waste. I smiled remembering the 100 year old kitchen with the drafty windows we had to cover with sheets of plastic in the winter time. The smell of a woodstove and oatmeal bubbling, dog hair and wet, dirty boots left to warm and dry. Our herb counter: odors of the tinctures, of dried and dusty herbs in jars and brown paper bags, vitamins and vinegars along the shelves. Mismatched dishes, most with chips in them, all hues of beige, haphazardly stacked on the wooden shelves and a colourful tea cosy, the centerpiece, that on some mornings my roommate Chris wore on his head as a toque. CBC played every morning, crackly like the fire, on an old transistor radio. I was 24, working towards my Psychology degree, in a crazy toxic relationship, but completely in love and living with two amazing hippie guys who taught me what real friendship looks like. I was the me that I haven’t been since. The real me, come out of hiding from I don’t-know-where or -why. The me that woke with the smell of Earth and the sound of frogs, who took hikes in wet forests and reveled in finding pretty mushrooms, who danced and loved with abandon. I know she’s in there. Inside me somewhere. I speak her truths and feel her passions. But another day goes by and I still wonder where she went. Do all true selves disappear at some point? Or do they just shed their skins and grow new ones, covered with replacement sounds and smells of children and new responsibilities? Why do so many of us deeply yearn for an escape? Why do we find it in a book or film instead of within ourselves? Who among us doesn’t feel like me?
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Tags: nostalgia
I am with you! I feel the same way. Recently, an old friend who we haven’t seen for awhile moved back, and seeing him reminded me of the way I was the last time we hung out. I miss that version of me! I agree, I’m still in there somewhere, i’ve just had to take a new shape with these new additions of babies and a husband into my life. Who knows if I’ll go back to the way I was? Maybe after my kids are grown and it’s back to just me and my husband? This is not to say the me now is bad, just different.
Happens to me all the time. I love visiting the “old me” every now and then. We all evolve into better, more experienced people. Embrace it
You will love the new you in ten years !
@Katie @Amy – I was actually just thinking if in another ten years I will look back at this time and think that right now I am the true me. I doubt it but it deserves the consideration. I also look at my mom right now who after having me at age 20 and being married twice but basically for her entire adult life, is suddenly single and being the self she missed out on while raising kids. I just don’t want to get to 50 and feel like I missed out on something you know?
Melodie´s last blog ..Deja-Vu
When we get to fifty, we do realize we missed out on something, And then we think some more and realize that for all the things we missed we were given other, unexpected things. We were given rich experiences all along the way that can’t be duplicated, things that have grown us into this new person that we have become, who the more I think about it, the more I realize, I like! I like this new me! I was so busy tending and caring and doing before, that I didn’t even think about it, but I really like who I became in the process! And when the littles get big enough, I can begin to discover my other passions again, maybe new passions, maybe old ones that had to rest and wait for this time. The children are the greatest passion I ever had, thta which required the most of my energy and strength for season. And – I want to say this very loud so the world will understand it – I NEVER REGRET THAT I POURED MY WHOLE SELF INTO MY FAMILY
mama K´s last blog ..October?!
Ha! I accidentally sent my comment while I was still typing it out. Just wanted to add this. I am now 57 (oh my goodness how did that happen!! I think there might be a mistake and I am really just 30 or 40 inside) and I have taken, since the littles got big enough, classes in dancing, drumming, and a foreign language just for fun, and now I am studying midwifery, which has been waiting on a back burner for years. About 50, you realize all your dreams are not going to come true after all (there were too many to fit into one lifetime), and you grieve a minute or two, then you decide which ones really matter and what are you going to do about it? Many women become their truest, most amazing selves after the age of 50. It continues to be about the choices we make, same as it always was. (-: Hope this encourages you. Who you will be is who you are building right now. -K.
mama K´s last blog ..October?!
I feel the same way sometimes! It’s hard to let go of so many things I used to love about myself. Like picking up and going at the drop of a hat–carefree and easy! But man, I sure like kids. I think I’m probably a better, more ethical, more conscious person than I ever was, now.
Sally´s last blog ..Happy, crispy, children, please!