Outgrowing parts of who you thought you were

Lately I’ve noticed that I haven’t been driving as crazy as “usual.” I haven’t driven on sidewalks or over curbs, or even through fields and gated parking lots…… I’m obeying speed limit signs and parking in places that I am supposed to park in. Even if I am still making fake parking passes, I haven’t out grown the idea that parking permits are WAY too expensive and I shouldn’t have to pay them. What happened to the “Speed Demon Rachel”?

Slowly over the past year I’ve notice certain things, trends I guess, of growing up and out of who I used to be. A great example of this is my red hair. Why in the heck did I do that? Of course I thought the red hair accentuated my personality. Sure it looked cute for a while but it overstayed its welcome.
I think this ends up being the case with most of the things that were “in” during times past. I’ve noticed this even more in regards to relationships, friendships, family, and lovers; the ebb and flow to them, as well as who people try to hold on to or try to let go. I am no longer close friends with my 5th grade best friend, and that’s ok. It’s ok to be interested in things other than horses or playing outside, or watching the latest Disney movie (….ok I still do that).

Another example I have of how we all change, is me taking a look at my mother. I know she skydived for a while and she had a horse when she was younger. She also would never let me read through her high school year books. I think she thought that I would see someone she wasn’t anymore. That I would take her “mistakes” as something other than mistakes because of the person she was after. She changed. She changed on a route she didn’t necessarily want me to take, because she knew some things that she wished she had not experienced, and tried to help me gain the knowledge without the regret. I admire this aspect in parents as well as my boyfriend; the urgent need to protect and teach and help. I admire it not because it’s a noble cause, which it is, but because they know they will most likely fail but they are drawn to do it anyway. They stand strong for the slim chance they help another jump from the question to the answer without any messy details. They stand strong through all the fights, all the failures, all the ships going down; but they are also there for all the times when they didn’t need to have the safety net ready. When the person they’re watching over takes a cue from them, and makes the right choice/turn.

This reminds me of why in chemistry we have formulas that we can “plug and chug.” Other people, long before us, did the differential questions, the first and second derivatives, and the hundreds of failed experiments. They made it easy for us, the have given us the easiest route from A to B, and we gladly take the short cut.

I often realize through some of the students at the College I work at, that they take “the long route.” Very similar to an adult showing a child a ball and then putting the ball behind the adults back. When the ball is out of sight the child believes the ball is gone complete; however when we are a little older we realize where the ball actually went. I feel that way with some of the students, they are making decisions and mistakes because they cannot see the full picture, and won’t be able to until later down the road. It’s interesting to realize that it is happening to me right now, and when I’m thirty I will realize I couldn’t “see” the ball.

I lied to myself for a very long time about my red hair…. I wanted it to be like it was when it was new – fresh and exciting. After a while it was boring and I had grown out of it. It took me a long time, and a lot of dying to get it back to brown. It lingered with me, whether I liked it or not.
Take a look at the person you are, I can guarantee you are vastly different that what you were 5 years ago, 3 years ago, maybe even three months ago. You have honed in on who you really are; what you actually like instead of what your best friend liked for instance. I’m reminded of the scene in Runaway Bride when the character played by Julia Roberts sits down at the diner and orders every kind of cooked egg, so she can figure out which one she actually liked – as I remember, it turns out that she just doesn’t’ like eggs.

I guess what I’m getting at is I am a changing, evolving creature. As people we grow out of parts of who we were but we keep the things that remain important to us. I am very glad that I am able to retain so much of what is important to me and let a lot of the other unimportant stuff just fall away.
I also wanted to thank all the people that have tried and continue to try to help me take a short cut, to skip the messy details, to avoid the shark tank – a appreciate it even if I hate you at the moment, especially because you’re right.
I am also very thankful that I eventually grew out of my red hair!

Disclosure: I am not picking on anyone in this note. And this is not like the disclaimer at the beginning of a Law & Order episode, I’m not actually taking a true event and twisting it. ; )