I'M NOT WHO I USED TO BE!!!
I may see you after 20 to 30 years, at a reunion, or while visiting my family. I look older, not skinny anymore, and the face - still smiley. The makeup still done. The rings, bracelets, earrings - still the same style. But you don't know me. I am not who I used to be.
I may have the same smile, the same laugh, and the same old eyes. But I'm not that person anymore. I keep that sweet, innocent, faith-that-could-change-the-world girl in a special place in my heart. Every now and then, she has to surface. It may be to comfort someone, it may be to fake it through a conversation, or it may be to defuse a situation with her peaceful, positive attitude. But she stays put away unless needed. She is not who I am anymore.
What changed? Whose fault is it? I have tried to analyze it so many times. Was it moving a lot? Was it having children? Was it family? Friends? Church people? Disappointments? The answer is yes. As I have traveled the road from youth through middle age, everything has affected my beliefs and my core values. Some things that I would have condemned when I was young are now things that I can not only accept, but stand for.
What I wonder is - does this happen in every generation? Could a 16-year-old that was raised with slavery turn into a 50-year-old that ran an equal opportunity business? Did a 20-year-old that campaigned for prohibition later become a middle-aged social drinker? I'm sure it did happen. And so...I am one of the ones that has changed. But what about those that don't? Really- what's it like to be one of those people?
I have many friends on a certain social network that are from my high school days. I sometimes take a "stalker-ish" look at their particular page to see if they've changed like I have. Sometimes I don't need to look. Some of them are still saying, endorsing, and espousing the same ideas and doctrines that we were fed in high school. Some of them still have that change-the-world faith. I'm a bit jealous of them in particular. Others drop hints that they too, have changed. Others declare it openly. I just wonder how I "landed" in the changed group.
"Jaded" - an older word, meaning hardened, cynical, negative. Am I jaded? I hope not. My career allows me to be a positive influence on little children all day long. I couldn't manage that successfully if I were jaded. But then something happens. A little five-year-old girl tells me that mom and dad were fighting all night and dad threw mom down to the ground. A nine-year-old boy tells me that his new step dad doesn't like him and makes him do chores from the time he gets home from school until bedtime. The special beast that is the preteen almost-middle-schooler learns to get attention by putting down others hurtfully and publicly. I always jump in and help, bridge, strive to foster healing. It's my instinct. But every instance over the years has taken away my innocence and belief that I can change the world. Therein lies the problem. As individuals, we cannot change the world.
I think part of my answer (to the "how did I end up this way? question) has come to me while sharing these thoughts. The blind faith gains sight - or insight - into particular situations when they cross my path. And I - I do the grown-up thing and allow these situations to change me in the way I think honors and protects the precious souls and feelings of the individuals in this world that receive hurt after hurt. Whether those individuals are children or adults, I think I owe them fairness. And kindness. And a listening ear and understanding heart. I owe them love. And if love has been what changed me, so be it.
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