My college roommate had been trying to tell me I was a writer since the early 1990s.
She had read a short story I had written for a class and I trusted her opinion so I had asked her to read it. She wasn’t trying to make a grand pronouncement, “You’re a writer.” She was making a point and referred to me as a writer and I quietly dismissed it. Her decision to identify me as a writer felt too big for me. It felt like someone had handed five year old me a pair of Gucci stilletos. I didn’t know what to do with that label so I did what most of us do when we haven’t yet grown into ourselves. I dismissed it.
Back then, the label writer belonged to people whose names appeared on the covers of books in the library. Writers wore tweed jackets, lived in cabins somewhere picturesque, and knew exactly what they wanted to say. I was an English major who loved words. There was a difference.
There were plenty of other identities that I inhabited with ease. College student. Wife. Mother. Daughter. Sister. But definitely not writer. For a long time I felt most comfortable introducing myself as my kids’ mom. What is ironic, is although I could not fully inhabit the identity of writer, the activity of writing and I continued our love affair. I wrote journal entries, poems, stories, papers, blog posts. I wrote constantly and could get lost in my writing for hours.
The doing of the writing was never in question. The identity of writer was.
A few weeks ago, my therapist asked me, “Are you aware that people value you?” If you read More Than Useful, you already know that question has been quietly rearranging the furniture in my mind. She asked me to spend two weeks documenting everything that was awesome about me. I expected to make a list, and I did. What I didn’t expect was the revelation that was the travel companion of the list.
Over the weeks as I documented what was awesome about me it became clear that the issue wasn’t that I questioned my awesomeness. The issue was that I had not inhabited it. I couldn’t recite the list with my full chest. Some of the things made me cringe. What is interesting is that I am very clear about what I don’t want and won’t accept. But less comfortable inhabiting the words that describe the person I have become. I am in that awkward space of healing where I know who I am not, so you can’t flim flam me into believing that I am less than. But owning the awesome is still a work in progress.
The more I catalogued what was awesome about me, the more I realized my therapist hadn’t simply asked me to see myself differently, her question had invited me to inhabit myself differently. As it turns out, those are two very different things because being able to see your truth with your physical and intellectual eyes is completely different than embodying that truth. The sight and the embodiment don’t always align. So it creates an awkward space in between.
It looks like knowing you deserve respect, but still allowing a select few people to give you less than you deserve. Or like understanding that your effervescence is truly what makes you unique and fun to be around, but apologizing for it and trying to minimize it, for fear that you will be seen as too much. It’s a very strange place to be. The old version of you doesn’t quite fit but the new version feels unfamiliar.
Nobody prepares us for this part of healing.
We literally have libraries full of books, podcasts, articles and hordes of people to help us recognize unhealthy habits, misaligned relationships, and limiting self-beliefs. We have legit squads cheering us on when we set boundaries, walk away from things that harm us, and all the celebrations when we recognize our worth. But where is the support for the next step?
The next step is quieter. It requires relentless practice. Right there is where the room gets quiet and there are literal tumbleweeds in that section of the bookstore.
Nobody tells us that there will be a season where the old version of you no longer fits and the new version still feels a little awkward. You may know the truth, but learning to live from it is still brand new. It is hella awkward and we tend to shy away from the awkward. If that is where you are, show yourself some grace because awkwardness isn’t failure, it’s practice. Celebrate yourself every time you embody your new identity. Your brain will crave more of what you celebrate, and before you know it what you practice will become your norm. Hopefully it doesn’t take you thirty years like it took me, but if it does celebrate it.
Inhabiting yourself doesn’t usually happen all at once. It happens one new and potentially awkward moment at a time until it feels natural. My roommate saw me as a writer thirty years before I could. The writer was there all along, she was just waiting for me to acknowledge her with my whole chest.
