New year, new you, right? Well, what if you are constantly being made new? What if you are in the middle of making multiple changes in your life that you are not even aware of? Sometimes it doesn't take a new year to force a change, in fact how many new years resolutions have you seen go down the drain within the first three months? The only thing is, maybe the changes that happen within us (or our lives) are not the changes we are asking for. They might not be the things we put on the top of our resolution checklist, but they take place anyway. Whether this takes place in the form of a new habit, personality change, or the way you react to things - you might not be the person you used to. Changes happen, but when we start to be aware of this an identity crisis might ensue.
Sometimes people change us, or circumstances, or the way you are being perceived. Either way, you begin to notice that you say things you didn't before, or maybe it feels different when you talk to people of your past, almost like you do not know how to anymore. Then you begin to wonder what is different about you and when it happened. Of course you love the people that you are close to in the current moment, but then when you run into the old and worlds collide, you start to question two things: the dreaded question of, "Am I changing for the better?" and the deeper question of "Who am I?".
Of course, you used to think you knew the answer to the second question, but now not so much. As for the first question, change is bound to happen but nobody wants to feel as if they are moving backward. You want to feel like you are moving forward, and if you already felt the old you was a really solid person you may be feeling dangerously close to moving in the negative direction while changing. All you know is that both the old and new you must be likable because you still have friends and people who love you, but you cannot help but wonder if maybe this change isn't positive. Whatever the case may be, even if there is no correlation between a positive or negative change in the person you have now become, there is still a difference and different is difficult. Different is change and change is sort of an "unknown" which holds a lot of fear within people. Different can be scary, but different is not bad. The unknown within all this is finding the missing pieces of who you truly are, which brings us to the next question of the new you.
The difference makes it harder to answer the question on who you are because you might not fully know anymore. This does not mean that you are lacking confidence, it is just weird to not fully understand yourself like you used to. So maybe you lost a few quirks and gained a few new ones, or you like different things/different ways of living, even things as simple as your taste buds changing can leave people of your past pondering and reacting to you in this strange, "Since when..." response. This can cause you to start questioning yourself, considering some people of your present never think twice about who you are, but if you think about it, they might have never been close to the "old you." Thinking about this enough can leave you jumbled in the thought that you might be a completely different person, however, this should not be the case.
All of what might be changing within you does not change the whole of who you are. Even if it is something as big as a personality change, it is still minor and does not change the basis of your demeanor. The differences might be strange, but you are not being rebuilt, just a little altered. And my guess is that these changes are things that were meant to take place; maybe it is called growing up or maturing. Maybe it is because of experiences that gave you a new outlook. Whatever the case may be, these changes should be embraced because in the end they actually make you who you are in the end. As humans, we are always a work in progress and meant to change. Instead of being scared of them, we should embrace and explore them figuring out who we are one change at a time.
