Or the day before, or the year before, or ten years ago?

Do you lose track of who and what you were? Do you go through a lot of superficial changes in your life? Or have you had an experience that was truly life changing, and not just on the outside?

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Answers

I think life sneaks up on us. One day you are graduating. Suddenly all your friends have kids and the teens are thinking, what a geezer. I've been married ten years and sometimes i feel like a newlywed with no clue as to how i got here. Don't get me wrong we are happily married, but i do wonder how it all happenned sometimes.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I have changed enormously over the last three years, and it's all been good. Three years ago (before I came to the UK) I had very low self-esteem, was constantly falling for the wrong people, had no real direction in my life, and only came to the UK in the first place because I didn't have much else to do.

I stopped feeling sorry for myself - that was my biggest problem. I developed an attitude of expecting life to be good, and life responded by becoming good. I also try to not whinge about anything, and if something is not right to sort it out - whether it's bad service in a restaurant, a duff time at work, or whatever.

I know it would have been harder to do this if I'd stayed in NZ - I was in a comfort zone. I needed to be by myself, with no possibility of my parents or friends sorting me out. I now recommend this kind of thing to anyone who is really sick of their life - make a change, go somewhere new. If it doesn't work out you can always go back, but (providing you're single and without kids) what do you have to lose?

Moving to London was life-changing for me. It enabled me to decide (roughly) what I want to do with my life, and I met Tristan - he was my flatmate. We got engaged after five months and married a year later. I was never expecting that to happen!

I had an email from my sister yesterday, telling me the news of all my old schoolfriends (including an ex-boyfriend - the one who broke my heart). I couldn't believe how everything was still the same for them. They're 26/27, and they are still living the same life they were when they were 20. That makes me glad I did things my way.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

My yesterdays go a long way back. In many ways I feel like the young Linda still lives inside my body. I still want, and look forward to, many of the desires of my youth. Superficial things like travel, a beautiful home, and deeper things like companionship and love. However, unlike my youthful self, this self is patient and I know that I myself, can make these things happen. Well, the material things anyway. I am not the same person as I was then as I have tons more self confidence and self-assurance than I did then. I believe in myself. I guess I have always been one to bounce back and keep going. I think the secret is to be able to take pleasure in life in the little day to day things like a purring cat in your lap, a perfect, spring day, a good book.... Also, it helps to have two supportive daughters. I didn't have their backup in my twenties. Even the companionship thing is really up to one's own initiative. I've joined the Sierra Club hoping to hook up with like-minded people who like to hike and do outdoor activities. And I'll return to the Master Gardener's group when I retire. I'm a lot smarter about my health too, then when I was young. I look around and see all these overweight people (I'm in Indiana-it's a statistic) with their health problems and I see the limited quality of their life and activities due to these factors, so I'm determined to be prudent, eat right, & exercise so that I can enjoy the many years remaining to me.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

For me, the external changes have always been closely tied to the internal changes. Or vice versa.

I am without question a different person today than I was 10 years ago. Or even 5 years ago, and certainly 20 years ago. Many of the changes I've gone through are related to dramatic events which have directly affected my perceptions of myself and the world around me, and some have more to do with what I believe to be the direct correlation between age and wisdom (i.e. I would no longer interview for a corporate job with blue hair...although the truth is - I would no longer interview for a corporate job).

Unfortunately, many of the qualities that I most dislike about myself are still in existence.

I like my life, but it's been a tough road, and it wasn't easy to get here. I know that all of the things I've been through have made me a stronger person, but I miss the sensitive, wistful girl I used to be.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

On the one hand, I am just now developing into what you read right here. On the other, there are continuities.

I look like a GI, in BX clothes, short hair, and the kind of round, National Health spectacles the government used to issue.

I wore a 46L sport coat when I got married. Now, it's 50L.

My work habits, as a writer, were based on my study habits, in college.

But those were based on the work ethic I absorbed in the service, which were, in turn, an extension of the values I learned in public school, Sunday School, the Boy Scouts, Saturday afternoon serials, comic books, and radio serials. Plus the Hardy Boys.

There's a longitudinal dimension, to my stack. People are born, grow up, get married, have children, die.

It's like Trollope's Chronicles of Barset.

I work in the Post Office. (Figuratively.)

I finish a book, I start another book, the next day, or the same day.

I'm sot in my ways. Impatient of change. All satirists are conservative.

And yet I consider myself liberal. Radical. This life of mine is not for the timid.

It's blend in, lay low, don't attract attention to yourself and don't come in half-stepping, kick asses and pull passes, bear down, locked in carnal embrace, and fighting it out for the earthly vehicle of the artist.

Flaubert said he had to be a bourgeois in his life so he could be wild in his art.

I'm a straight-person at my job and a holy fool online.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

The more I change, the more I stay the same.

I did have a life altering experience that changed me forever. I was *very* abused by my mother for 25 years. She threatened to kill me (again) & 'ruin me' in Jan '99. With therapy, I got away from the abuse, and am now learning who I am while fixing the parts of me that were broken by the abuse. I've made a lot of changes in my life - lost a lot of "friends," lost my entire family (they think I've joined a therapy cult - seriously!). My values are slightly different, the things I hear myself say are a little different, and my priorities are completely changed. Now I've experiencing new and good things. In short, I've seen a whole new world through my new eyes. And I've seen the past through new eyes.

But the funny thing is, I'm still the same person. I thought Id wake up one day and look at who I was at 20 and not know her at all, but thats not true. Were different people, but it is more of an evolution than a magic act.

The person inside me who walked away from what I thought was all I had (my family) and facemy biggest fears (being alone in the world - with no family & no one to love me) is the same person who was pulled down the stairs & hit & screamed at for so many years. It wasn't a reactionary thing; it all comes from who's within. After awhile, I found myself saying things that shocked myself. The right words were out of my mouth before I'd thought, fretted, etc them for weeks. And that was when I found my soul.

I'm more in tune with who I am now and am better able to trust my intuition, judgement, and self. It is like I walked through a door and entered a world where there's a new, better version me. For the first time in my life I'm *happy* & *content* & *okay.* I actually understand that I'm a work in progress, so I just try to live each day trying to be the best version of me - without the overachiever stuff attached. And once the overachiever stuff is gone, I'm actually able to do *more!* And it is so *easy* - thats the real kicker!

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else... I now feel sorry for people who don't know who they are - so caught up in the daily grind of their life, living for all the wrong reasons (other people, jobs, etc.), and who are unhappy with who they are. Life can be about superficial changes, but that's not much of a journey. Its the 'awakening' of your soul that really makes life worth living and makes all the difference.

And I don't think you have to have something terrible happen to you to find your soul - and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Just find your soul. The rest is icing on the cake.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I've changed a lot, and it's for the better.

Someone said that life changes you and you don't even realize. That's so true. I find journals or even calendar notes or any kind of writing are fascinating for tracking this. It's the stuff between the lines that you see, in retrospect, has changed. How you were so worried about your job then and now you're like, fuck it, I can get another one if this one doesn't work out. Stuff like that.

I have been through therapy and take antidepressants now, which has made some real differences in me. I was a big drama queen for years. Now things that would have thrown me into a tizzy barely upset me. That's a big improvement both for my mental stability and for the sanity of those around me.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I, too, am always amazed when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Not only do I expect to still look like I'm 14, I always think I'm a lot taller than I am.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Oh god, what a good day for this question. Yesterday I saw myself in the mirror and my hair was down and I was wearing a bright blue shirt and I looked exactly, I mean EXACTLY like I do in a picture from 1991. I was 16 then and I'm 25 now. Yeesh. No one will ever think I'm a grownup at this rate.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Remember this, from Grosse Pointe Blank? "Did you go to your high school reunion?" "Yes, I did. It was just as if everybody had swelled."

Hehe. Probably more true than we'd like to think. If I lost, say, 30 pounds, I would look almost exactly the same as I did when I started grad school in '90.

On the non-superficial side, when I was 14, in about one three-month period I went from being a horrid little teenage herd animal to essentially-an-adult. No apparent reason, it just happened. I remember it very clearly because it was so weird. I started responding to the world in a totally different way. Everything since then is pretty well integrated.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

My life-changing experiences and personality traits have taken over my face. I feel as though my personality is finally coming through to the surface. Some days, when I still feel 19, I'll look in the mirror and see my face and think, "oh, yeah. That's right. It's been a decade. You're not a girl anymore, you've had a lot of sleepless nights, and you've learned to laugh at anything."

Yup, it's all in my face. And while I sometimes miss looking like the fresh-faced girl next door, and feeling like her too, I like the clarity and perspective nine subsequent years' experience has wrought. -------------------------------------------------------

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

I'm very different from the person I was in my early twenties, but ever since getting through that last bout of adolescence, say ten years ago, I feel pretty consistent. Same daily frustrations and immortal longings. Well - I do notice one change. I find myself less and less interesting as a topic of conversation. If you asked me what I was like five years ago, I could have talked for an hour. Now, I feel secure in saying "Pretty much like everyone else."

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

Yes, I think I've changed. There are elements of who I am that have remained constant ... but as a young adult I am only barely out of the shifts in nature that make an adult person who he/she is.

I can reach back to the child I was and recognize her as a sort of proto-self, but she is not the same person as I am today, though we are similar.

Phase 1 -- Early childhood. I am a bossy, precocious only child, full of energy, a non-stop talker, who likes to hang out with grownups as much as her peers. Bearer of a terrible temper that shows itself in vicious temper tantrums.

Phase 2 -- Middle childhood. We move to Europe and the language barrier turns me inward. I am still bossy, and talkative with adults, but I become increasingly uncomfortable with my peers. Temper continues to be a problem.

Phase 3 -- Middle childhood - Early adolescence. We move back to the USA. I become extremely introverted, shy and retiring. I am afraid of boys, and resist being a "normal" teenager. My temper goes underground along with the rest of me.

Phase 4 -- High school. I switch from private to public school and slowly learn not to be shy anymore. Many of my personal beliefs about life change (as they often do). Temper is barely a blip on the radar.

Phase 5 -- Early college years. I take on the role of "mother-hen" within my group of friends. I'm the confident one who has all of her ducks in a row. Temper begins to resurface from time to time.

Phase 6 -- Later college/early adulthood. A broken heart and the onset of hypothyroidism send me into a depressive spiral. I am listless, sad and lost. Temper resurfaces as I lash out at the world around me.

Present -- slowly regaining the confidence of phases 5 and 6, especially on the professional level. I am somewhat reserved in public, but very warm and talkative among friends. I'm still something of a control freak and I occasionally lose my temper, but I am no longer ruled by my anger as I was as a child. I am something of a cross between my child and adolescent selves -- more reflective and less overt than in early years, more outgoing and confident than I was as an adolescent.

Adulthood has brought a certain balance to the stronger characteristics of my personality.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000

About three years ago I remember writing something in my journal about some diaries I'd written back in 1990, which I was then re-reading and which I was horrified by. And it really was quite horrifying to read some of the things I'd written and be forced to admit that yes, I did write that and I did think that and I was that person. I hoped I'd improved since then. And of course now I look back on that three year old journal and wonder if I had indeed changed that much from 1990 to 1997. I'm pretty sure I've changed somewhat since then, too, and I still hope it's for the better. But we never can really tell.

As for life-changing events, that would be when my brother died in 1987. If that hadn't happened, and if he were still around, things would have undeniably been different. Maybe I would still have done the things that I did through the 1990s, but I would've been a vastly different person to what I've turned into through the 1990s.

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000

Same person, definitely. Circumstances have changed, and I guess I've grown or matured or whatever in many respects (at least I like to think so), but when I look back at the past 35 years, I don't have that many regrets. There have been several life changing experiences, but like I said, they mostly applied to circumstances. They didn't really change my outlook on life in general.

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000

I have to emphatically agree with Jackie's statement on the effect that moving to a different country can have. I moved from Hamilton, New Zealand to Innsbruck, Austria, initially on an academic exchange scholarship for the last year of my Master's (in 1995), and ended up staying on to do a PhD.

If you haven't experienced it yourself, it's hard to realise how a bunch of small cultural differences can combine to be seriously disorienting, and how hard it can be to find a new circle of friends. My own experience really opened my eyes to this, making me much more sympathetic to people I now meet who are in the same situation, and much more active in initiating social contacts. I also met my wife, which meant a real readjustment on my part in terms of opening up and sharing thoughts and feelings (communication is THE most important thing in any lasting relationship, in my opinion), and really trusting someone else. Actually doing the PhD developed a lot of useful critical-thinking type skills, and caused me to better appreciate both my abilities and my limitations.

So - am I still the same person? Well, I've just described some important changes, but I think my basic character is essentially the same. I still care about the same causes, and have basically the same ideas about what's right and wrong. Change has been more in terms of perhaps reinterpreting particular circumstances with knowledge and understanding gained through experience; the basic principles remain intact.

Sam

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000

This is actually really difficult to answer, because I am both the same person who tried to fool her parents into thinking she could read (but the book was upside-down) at age three, and a completely different person. I think basic personality characteristics don't change - but latent ones can develop or you can teach yourself not to display quite so prominently the things about yourself you dislike.

As a child I was very self-confident (read: cocky and arrogant, only it was charming because I was little), and I lost a lot of that as a teenager. Now I'm getting it back again: I care less what strangers think of me, I'm more at home in my body, and I'm less self- centered in that bad way where all you can think about is the impression you're making, because you're so terrified it's a bad one.

Also, of course, many of my opinions have changed in fundamental ways based on my experiences.

But I think that despite lots of changes - mostly positive - I'm still essentially the same person I was at two. Though I'm pretty far from the mess I was at 16.

Joanne
Parietal Pericardium

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000