Identity on the Road
When you first meet someone, there’s quite a short window to communicate your story. I used to believe you could learn a lot about someone from the answers they gave to your first few questions. Perhaps I felt my story was simple, so others’ might be as well.
Until recently, I had simple answers to the questions “What do you do?” and “Where are you from?” I’d say “I grew up an hour north of New York City” and that told most of the story (or so I’d believed). Later I’d add “then went to college in Scranton PA.” Then living outside of Boston for 4 years became part of the story. But it still felt cohesive; it felt simple. There was a place I grew up, a place I went to school and a place I’d been an adult.
Until recently, I had maybe three distinct and lightly disparate identities (read: “stories”). At home I was the youngest child: goofy, irresponsible, rebellious. In high school I was the smart, shy (until you know me) kid on the cross country team. And in college, I’d made myself out to be a logical, philosophical, shy type. Occasionally those identities (stories) would intersect and eventually I realized they differed: friends from different circles know me as different people. I hadn’t been dishonest to anyone, I just played different roles in different environments. Somehow it came as a surprise to realize I now have friends who don't know any of those early identities except for what I've described of my past (you’re likely one of them reading this now).
Two things happened when we left our stable lifestyle:
our stories and motives became more complicated to explain
the frequency of retelling these stories to strangers went WAY up
Nearly every day we’d meet someone new and nearly every day we’d have an opportunity to retell (rewrite?) who we are. To “where are you from?” I could say…
“an hour North of New York City” because that’s where I grew up, or
“Just Outside Boston” because that’s where I lived and worked most recently, or
“Mid-Coast Maine” because of the van’s Maine plates, or
“Central PA” because that’s where Jesse is from.
As we play with this idea, I’ve also said “we’re transient” and “that’s becoming a complicated answer.” All of these answers tell a different part of my story, but they’re all equally true.
Until recently, I clung to these 3 or 4 core identities and lived as if I were a smooth continuation of that person. In reality, I’ve been growing and changing rapidly and those stories written in my head are becoming outdated. I don’t plan to shed these stories, I love them and who I’ve become. Now, though, I’m more inclined to call them sub-stories, or chapters of a greater narrative arc of my life.
Certainly this isn’t a novel idea; many people have considerably longer and more complicated stories. For me this realization was the path to understanding my story in a different way and ultimately a gateway to understanding how to craft my narrative moving forward.
