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Am I still me?
I've recently been thinking quite a bit about my life over the last few years.
Towards the end of last year, I was contacted out of the blue by two people who I'd had no contact with in the best part of 6 or 7 years, which immediately threw me back to that time in my life. Not long after I re-established contact with the girl who'd been my best friend before I moved to London, after almost 18 months.
Inevitably, as with every trip down memory lane, the comparisons followed - who I was then, who I am now... what, if any, are the changes, and why? Have I changed for the better (or worse), or am I pretty much the same person? What would they think of me now?
The resultant catch-up conversations have been mostly great, but at the same time, very strange. I've been surprise, and in a couple of cases, quite shocked as to the recollections recounted to me, and I've found myself feeling somewhat divorced from my younger "self".
The person they describe doesn't feel like me. It doesn't descibe how I felt about myself then, and in some cases, not even now.
Reading this article by Sheena McDonald on the BBC website today brought the whole thing to the front of my mind again.
Granted, the various traumas I've experienced in a similar period haven't been quite as physically dramatic,
there are still a number of scars I've picked up on the road from there to here.
It's a very thought-provoking piece, and what I can't help thinking is that it's all a matter of perception. How we perceive ourselves is only very rarely how others see us.
One of the comments at the end of the piece pretty much hits the nail on the head - we're all constantly changing, to a greater or lesser degree, as a result of our environment and life experiences, and I think the trick is to feel, deep down within ourselves that the changes are positive, and that we're at least moving in a direction that we like.
... and when I think about it from that point of view, I am convinced that the changes in me have been mostly positive - even if not directly, and that, I think, is enough. For the moment at least.
January 16, 2004 in Me, me, me | Permalink
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Comments
The worst thing that has happened in my life (so far I guess) is commonly referred to by Louise and I as "a very good thing". It was awful at the time, but we both learned and gained from it and are much the better for it..
I'm guessing this is where the phrase "Every cloud.." stems from, trouble is you need to look pretty hard for that lining sometimes, and even then you need to be in the frame of mind to WANT to find it.
Posted by: Gordon | Jan 16, 2004 1:59:08 PM
I think this is a really interesting 'problem'. I have lost touch with one of my best friends because we simply did not seem to have anything in common anymore other than knowing each other for a really long time. It didn't seen enough at the time. And over time we do change, our needs, vision, desires etc etc all become different. Things happen to us that make us see things differently. And other people's perceptions of us are not always a. how we would like to see ourselves or b. who we really are - they are just that - their perception of us.
Posted by: Harriet | Jan 19, 2004 12:56:12 AM
The night before last i watched Sheena McDonald's short film about her injuries and the long recovery that followed (well, i watched all but the last 5 minutes as it clashed with something i never miss).
Then last night i watched one of the most remarkable and beautiful films ever made (Takeshi Kitano's "Dolls"). The differences in how these two people (McDonald and Kitano) dealt with near-fatal accidents is incredibly interesting.
Since her accident, McDonald has fought tooth-and-nail to "get back" to where she was before that fateful night. I imagine this approach was dictated by her severe memory loss... the feeling that she had truly lost something important to her, and hence the desire to regain it.
Takeshi Kitano, on the other hand, used his near-fatal motorcycle accident as a "jump off" point into a completely new life. Before his accident, someone described him as "the Dale Winton of Japan". Since the crash, however, he has become an entirely different person, and now makes haunting, gorgeous films about death and loss.
I'm not saying one way of dealing with a brush with death is "better" than another. We are each compelled to walk the path that is best suited to us. But we must surely be thankful that the man who wrote and directed "Dolls", "Hanna-Bi" and "Sonatine" did not remain the same person he was before his accident.
As for me... my own near-fatal car accident significantly changed who i am. Sadly it's not inspired anything as elegiac as "Dolls".
Posted by: jim | Jan 22, 2004 2:47:47 PM
