Last week I talked to a very old friend after losing touch for a few years. It was a wonderful conversation, open, honest and deep right from the start. I told him that I feel like I am not the same person he knew and got slightly anxious. His answer was amazing: He said “Oh, I don’t expect you to. Actually, I would be concerned if you were”.
This sunk in deep. If I meet people I haven’t seen for a while, it makes me feel uneasy because I fear they might think that I have become something less. Less beautiful, less energetic, less sparkling, less whatever, just less. How can it be that somebody who embraces the change of the world and the possibilities of the new so much, somebody who works to change herself towards a better version of herself every day, be so afraid of change for the worse at the same time?
Yes, I might have become less at something than I was a few years ago. But if you look at the whole picture, I’m also a lot more since then. Maybe what I became less was no longer a priority, or my experiences carry me somewhere else?
I shouldn’t have to be ashamed of the wounds I carry and the tiredness I feel, even if you can see it in my eyes. It means that I came far and made it through a lot. Oh, you can’t imagine where I come from as I will never be capable of where you set foot on. A face is a face, but it often doesn’t give even a glimpse of its story. Yes, I did change, and I work on myself to change even more. I am busy putting ointment on old wounds, examine where they came from and trying to break emotionally unhealthy patterns.
Old friends might become new friends when we meet again. Besides: Do you ever know a person anyway, even yourself? Another friend who is married for 20 years told me that he thinks his marriage works because his wife is still a stranger to him in many ways. Maybe we are all strangers? Maybe what it is about is not to expect to know, trust in the unknown, and see identity as a more fluid matter. Change is happening; nobody is who they were when you last met.
My outfit:
Dress & Coat: Coster Copenhagen kindly gifted by Custom Made, , Sunglasses: Marc Jacobs,
Shoes: Irregular Choice, Necklace: Tatty Devine, Bag: Gucci
Pictures: Philipp Mueller
