Change: Breaking My "Mold"

I feel like one of the things that the grownups in my life forgot to mention to tell me when I said I couldn’t wait to grow up as a child and even as a teen was that things change in life.  Change happens on the daily and sometime it’s very subtle and other times it’s a 160.  The point I’m trying to make is that change is something I can’t control most of the time and it’s scary realizing that the person I was two years ago is completely different than the person I am today.

I love my jeans.  I wear them nearly 365 days a year and I have no problem with that (well, except for those hot Kansas summer days when wearing shorts and a tank top feel like I’m wearing jeans and a parka).  As reflective as I’ve been recently about the changes I’ve made in my life, the ones that I consciously did and the ones I subconsciously changed I’ve realized that so much of my teen years I tried putting myself into a mold.  In some cases, I think I tried cramming myself into that mold.

I’ve tried several times to explain this but have failed to do so in a way that wouldn’t make me sound completely bonkers.

My family is an outdoors family.  Growing up I spent most of my summers at the family farm fishing and camping or we’d be out at a state lake doing the same.  In the fall and winter I’ve accompanied my father, brother, uncle and cousins on hunting trips.  These activities produce some of my fondest memories of my family and my childhood.  In the last year or so I’ve slowly started to realize that I don’t make learning everything I can about guns a priority, or that I still don’t really know how to skin a fish properly.  Even more important to this realization is that I’m tired of pretending to make these things a priority, of trying to make them define me.

I don’t know what defines me.  I’ve changed since high school and my thoughts and views on life are different.  My priorities have changed. My dreams and goals have changed.

Change.

It’s a weird concept to think about.

Back to the molds I was talking about.  I had these molds that I was trying to conform to.  For example, I felt like because I enjoyed going shooting with my brother that I was slacking on being on top of the knowledge and information to make him proud.  I felt like because I enjoyed being on stage in theatre in high school that I need to be more outgoing and sociable.  Even now, I’ve changed my major and I feel like I have to fit the mold to be more sociable and outgoing in order to be succesful the industry.

What I’m trying to get at (I think) is that I shouldn’t feel inclined to say I hate wearing my dress pants because they aren’t my jeans.  My dress pants are really freaking comfortable and I feel super confident in them.  I shouldn’t feel inclined to go to the gun store and stare blankly at cleaning tools just to give the illusion that I know what the hell I’m doing.  I shouldn’t feel inclined to do anything that makes me want to define myself as one thing or another because it’s what I think I should be defined as.

In short, I want to be me.  As I’m writing this, I realize that’s what my 20’s are going to be about, finding who I really am and what I want to be as future Jess.

That’s scary as shit but yet exciting all at the same time.