Am I the Same Person I Used to Be? On Reinventing the Self
Am I the same person I used to be? Am I the curly-haired moppet writing so earnestly with a pencil grasped in her fist? The 18-year-old high school graduate who dreamed of a wider world but feared she would never leave Lubbock, Texas. The 38 year old who, after a painful divorce, moved her small daughter cross country to pursue graduate school. The 62 year old who had a stroke while staying in a writer’s colony in rural Georgia and had to be rescued by that same daughter, now an adult? The 72 year old now writing this Substack post?
I’ve experienced many liminal moments when I invented or reinvented myself. Why liminal? The in-between moments of change were both painful and occasionally exhilarating. A snake shedding its skin. And I am not alone. Many have done the same or wondered if they could.
The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life summarizes the work of prominent scientists who have the investigated the life and personality changes of more than 4000 individuals in several countries. Joshua Rothman of the New Yorker points out that one of the more interesting metaphors the scientists use to explain human development is weather systems:
Each individual storm has its own particular set of traits and dynamics….The fate of any given Harvey, Allison, Ike, or Katrina might be shaped, in part, by “air pressure in another locale,” and by “the time that the hurricane spends out at sea, picking up moisture, before making landfall.”
We don’t expect weathermen to make flawless forecasts. Likewise, predictions of personality changes wrought by genetic and environmental factors are probabilities, not certainties.
Still, I've never thought of myself as a weather system, particularly not a hurricane. It makes more sense to think of myself as a bird that flies through some rough weather at times. The storms of life buffeted and battered my 18-year-old self’s efforts to spread eagle wings, shaping my character as I negotiated the thermals and downdrafts of life.
Perhaps I learned that, with some smarts and lots of effort, I could fly far away and build nests in mountain crags and desert cliffs. Years later, I changed into an owl with horned-rimed glasses, the better to nest in libraries; but, at least in my mind, I remained the same person. A stroke may have clipped my wings for awhile, but my self narrative of reinvention, with some help, especially from my daughter-friend, carried me through. The wing feathers regrew. At 72, reinvention while remaining essentially the same person is a believable and practiced strategy, if not an easy one.
I haven’t changed all that much from the curly-haired child in the photo. I still like pencils.
Notes
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/10/are-you-the-same-person-you-used-to-be-life-is-hard-the-origins-of-you
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/going-beyond-intelligence/202010/review-the-origins-you-how-childhood-shapes-later-life