Different

I feel different.  From myself, as I've known myself to be, for most of my life.  It's not that my personality has changed, but I had this moment today when I just realized just how much transformation I've been through in the past couple of years.  It's hard to describe in a way, partly because the connections are still being made in my brain, but I can feel the change in myself.  Two years ago, I was struggling in my marriage and with my job, I didn't feel like I was at all where I wanted to be, and I didn't know how to fix that.  At the beginning of last year, I decided to end my marriage.  I lived alone for the first time, and for the first time I was making some decisions based on what I wanted and not what I thought I should do.  I got to travel the world for work for most of the summer and saw a lot of new and amazing places.  I had times of depression and loneliness and times of peace and joy.  I had no idea how things were going to be when I got past the feelings of guilt and shame about getting divorced.  I fell in long-distance love, which was wonderful and agonizing and another source of uncertainty.  At the beginning of this year, I went to India and danced for a wedding and then went back to India for five months after that to be closer to my new love and learn what living in India would feel like.  I struggled with uncertainty, the feeling of being in limbo for a long time, being out of place.  I had a beautiful apartment materialize and then get washed away (literally) by monsoon rain, and then had nobody to help me rescue my moldy belongings and move elsewhere.  I made a wonderful new friend during the ordeal who was preordained to be my karaoke partner.  I had wonderful moments and times when I wanted to get the next available flight back to Chicago.  My love grew in the midst of my doubts.  My job existed, but it was not the most important thing.  I returned to Chicago and still feel like I'm in transition.

I feel different because I feel like I can see life from more angles now.  I still abhor patriarchy and injustice and small talk like I did for so long.  I still don't like Twilight.  I don't like unrealistic fantasies.  But I also can now see the possibility of being happy, even through the residue of guilt that I still need to deal with.  I can see an imperfect relationship with an imperfect person and think it's perfectly wonderful.  I can see that I simply cannot do everything, that there are some paths that I won't take in favor of taking others, and I am more okay with that than I've ever been - I may never go to grad school, I may never have kids, and either way, I think I'll be okay.  I can see the good fortune I've had through some unexpected twists at my job, when I never thought I'd still be at the same company after more than seven years.  I still have some dark, difficult lows, and I'm definitely lonely, but I also have hope and some experience seeing how things ebb and flow.  I know tomorrow I might read this and not be feeling as optimistic, and it might seem overly sentimental and sugar-coated.  But right now, I know it's true.