I’ve said it before and I say it again: being in my 30s is such a weird time. In my first year of this decade, most of who I was in my 20s has been shredded and abandoned for who I am becoming. But who is that? And what do I do with these leftover pieces of that girl who clambered her way to stand here, astounded to still be alive?
In the last four or five years alone, my life has undergone immense changes. I got married and divorced. My favourite bar closed, which marked the end of an era for me. An era of partying, close friends, karaoke nights and that place to go when life crumbled. I dated then decided it wasn’t for me and embraced being single. One of my favourite stores is now closing. A retro clothing shop that helped me discover myself in my 20s, where I got my wedding dress and it became a happy place for me. These last few years saw me fall into what seemed to be an interminable darkness where I was suicidal and my mother thought every unknown number on her phone was that call. I couldn’t seem to comprehend all these changes and growing up to top of the trauma I already live with.
I am no longer in that place. It’s different now. I am growing into someone else and I don’t know who she is yet. All of the pieces of who I used to be are irrelevant. It’s not me anymore and yet the people around me still have this image, this assumption that it’s still me.
As a teenager and well into my 20s I was a complete hippie. That was my identity, my aesthetic, everything. It was my belief system. After leaving my ex-husband, I went through a lot of changes. I haven't been much of a hippie for close to three years now. Especially since starting "Beyond Dark", I sort of began aligning my new self with Alyssa. Tough, fierce, blunt, but with a softer side. Embracing the side of me that loves psychology and true crime. I dared to step out into a different identity, right down to dressing and thinking differently. Many celebrities I loved (John Lennon, Don Cherry, etc) I learned were not who they seemed to be and quit following their beliefs and them as people.
John Lennon - goodness. My mother LOVED the Beatles and still does to this day. As a teen, I read tons about Lennon and his beliefs, bed-ins for peace and him and Yoko and I idolized him for so many years. Up until this year, basically. When I found out he actually used to beat his first wife and he was racist. This image I had of a peaceful man crumbled. I have since gotten rid of all traces of him from my house. I had books, posters, quotes, all I accumulated and subsequently got rid of.
And Don Cherry - a prior hockey coach, Stanley Cup winner with Boston in 1960-something, I also idolized him. I was obsessed with hockey. It was another identity of mine. Someone else I aligned myself with. I spent years wearing hockey sweaters, memorizing stats and players and records. There was a time when I could tell you who won the Stanley Cup every year from 1970 to the current season. Well, late last year, Cherry was fired from his long-time job at CBC Hockey Night in Canada for going on a racist tangent in the middle of the show. I stopped watching hockey a few years ago, though still enjoyed watching the intermission show with him and Ron MacLean.
This all comes at a time of my life when I am trying to understand racism and how systematic racism works. Both of those pieces of my past were so hard to let go of. I just... it killed pieces of me. Truly. And now that I no longer align with either Lennon or Cherry, I am in this place where I am stepping out as a version of me that doesn't align with anyone else. The point of all this, is that I cannot escape that stigma of who I used to be. Hockey girl. Hippie. So-and-so’s ex-wife. Turning 31 found me not only surprised to still be here, but struggling to dispose of these labels people still apply to me.
My ex-sister-in-law, with whom I am still close, and I went for dinner last night. During a conversation, she referred to me as a hippie. I take no offense to it, it's who I was for so long. I even went along with it. But that was my true moment of realizing how much that girl I have shed from myself. That I have no growing room in this town.
But I’ve lived in the past just as much. It’s terrifying to peel off those labels to see what’s newly growing underneath, because I really don’t know who I am going to be from here. It is time to leave the old pieces behind and let the new growth take roots.
I’ll never know what it brings unless I let in.
Comments