Yesterday, Chris was talking about someone in his life who he knew only in the "after" of a "before and after." Before, the man was in medical school and led a stable life. The after came after the Vietnam War, where the man was a medic and had suffered greatly physically and mentally. After the war, he became addicted to different substances and struggled with homelessness.
It reminded me of a different conversation I had, about a woman who was seriously obese and then woke up one morning and said "Not anymore." Now, she is physically unrecognizable from her "before," and I wonder if she is mentally unrecognizable, too.
All this makes me think about huge shifts which leave us, in different ways, unrecognizable to our former selves. It makes me wonder what it would look like if I experienced a radical shift. What would a radical shift, in me, look like toward the story of the man (negative)? What would a radical shift look like toward the story of the woman (positive)? It's easier to imagine what it would look like for me to have a backward slide, but, for whatever reason, it is very hard for me to conceptualize what an upward climb would look like.
After a very long day, sometimes I will think of the day as if it were multiple days. As in "in the morning, when I took a long hike, that was one day" and "in the afternoon, when I made large quantities of apple sauce, that was another day." I'm starting to think about my life in terms of a really, really long day; there is the possibility of doing one thing the whole day or having one part of the day be entirely encapsulated from another.
It wouldn't take a psychologist or someone who has known me forever to sense that I am feeling the need for a new part of my day. A radical change, where maybe I become unrecognizable to myself and others in some way. It will not be a giving up or a quick, dark destruction. I'm going the other way, but I don't know what that looks like.
It doesn't take a war for a radical change. What would a radical change look like in you?
Monday, October 31, 2011
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Someone I've been working with used to phrase "shattering oneself apart to rebuild, renew, reconnect" and that is exactly what I've done over the last few years. I am unrecognisable from the Rachel of say, 2004. To be honest I am unrecognisable from the Rachel of early 2010....
ReplyDeleteYou are right, it doesn't take a war. It takes a surrender.
ReplyDeleteAfter almost 7 years of suffering from an eating and extreme over exercise disorder, I surrendered to an inpatient treatment hospital 2 weeks ago.
Radical change indeed. Change is hard. But does it have to be? I hope to learn that it doesn't have to be.
A great quote came my way a few months back, "Things don't have to perfect to make a change. You just have to make up your mind to do it."
ReplyDeleteThis is giving me hope and strength as my partner and I try to re-imagine our lives. We don't have to fix every single thing in our house to sell it. We can let someone else take up where we leave off.
Thanks for the great post.
About five years ago I entered into my midlife crisis. propelled in large part by being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Over the course of a couple of years I became physically active (running, swimming, and doing yoga), lost 100 pounds, and had a major change in personality. My wife and other family members and friends, coworkers, and even distant acquaintances were all shocked by the speed and the extent of the transformation.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I’ve changed in many ways, and I’m happy with the changes, I have to say that I’m still fundamentally the same person that I was five years ago- the changes that seemed so dramatic to other people were actually small and incremental to me.