Halloween is coming up, and that means I have to decide what to be. This year, it’s looking like I’m going to be Disney’s Cruella and Christmas’s Rudolph. Of course I’m putting my own creative spin on them and making them more my style.
The thing that I find ironic is that I know what my “style” is despite being in a current identity crisis. Midlife crises are always dominating the tabloids, but I rarely see a headline that mentions identity. I think it’s because not everyone goes through a midlife crisis, but it’s assumed everyone struggles with their identity at some point in their life.
What’s weird is I knew who I was a year ago, but this year, I’m back to square one. I thought that joining clubs I’m passionate about would automatically hook me up with friends for life, but that hasn’t happened yet. We have things in common, sure, but it’s not enough for me. I’m a deep person. I want to find the people to pull all-nighters with arguing over whether brown sugar pop tarts are better than strawberry ones, and whether reincarnation exists or if the reason people say it doesn’t exist is because it scares them to think they’ll have to come back to Earth and start all over again. I’ve had the pop tart conversations, but the reincarnation conversation hasn’t happened yet. It’s the big stuff that’s missing.
In response to this, I decided to join more clubs, and what I found was the same thing. I had things in common, but I wasn’t getting close with anyone. Right now it feels as though everyone already knows each other and I’m a lowerclassman in an upperclassman’s body. Think Freaky Friday.
The groups of people are amazing, it’s not their fault. It’s my fault that I don’t know who I am right now enough to give my all to them. I don’t even know who Sydney is, so how do I introduce a stranger to new people and expect them to feel close to me?
I like to have fun and drink, but I don’t like to smoke like many of my English peers. I love to write like many of my friends majoring in journalism, but I like to write books more than articles. I believe in God and want to get married, but I hate tradition. I have a supportive family, but I still feel like if I were to ask them about my deepest fear that none of them would know the answer. I love to run, but only if I’m my own competitor. I love advocating about body image, but I still have slip-ups where I hate my reflection in the mirror.
There’s so many conflicts within my own individuality that when I’m with one group, I say something, and when I’m with another, I say the opposite. I feel like I’m two people in one, two people who wouldn’t get along if separated from my soul. And that’s why my identity feels like the green light at the end of The Great Gatsby; I have hope I’ll find it, but the light is still a year or so away.
The truth is writing this article is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write because I don’t understand what I’m writing. My costume is a white angel with a halo of confusion hovering over my head. Creative works I can write because I can use my imagination to fill in the gaps that I don’t know. I can’t do that here. This is real life.
I FaceTimed my best friend about my so-called identity crisis, and she didn’t give me any answers, but she did say she saw growth. She saw growth not in any outcomes or accomplishments, but within my mind and my thought processes. And that’s where it starts.
My costume is whatever I say it is.