Have you changed in getting older?
I have a strong suspicion if you haven’t you might be dead. It’s inevitable, really, that we will change as we get older. Many of us become more confident, more outgoing, more settled with who we are and who we would like to be.
Me? Apparently, I’ve become calm.
The wonderful Sonia Styling left a comment on my post last week saying that being around me at Problogger was a calm among the high energy and noise.
Wow.
I have never thought of myself as calm before. I’m really chuffed by it! It actually means a whole lot more to me than she would ever realise. It means I’ve finally done it – I’ve finally managed to let go of who I was.
Growing up I was the loud kid. I was the one everybody knew by name 5 minutes after I entered a room or started a class. When I was in my first term at high school, people were walking up to my brother telling him they were amazed he was related to me.
I was the stubborn kid. My name was said with a slur and an inflection that meant it was an insult. My extended family used my name as a synonym for tantrum which, coincidentally, was also the nickname my brother bestowed upon me and quickly caught on.
I was the obnoxious kid. The one who refused to follow rules, who would enrol in after-school programs and only turn up when they felt like it. Who talked back to teachers, who made up stories, who told lies.
I was never the calm one.
17 years old, lying on a trampoline one New Years Eve with a guy I had met at the party that night. He turned to me and he said “I never would have thought the person who walked into that party so confident, loud and outgoing, would be the person lying on a trampoline with me at midnight talking like this. You’re two different people.”
For a long time I was.
30 years old and I’m finally one.
Happily, that one is a calm and relaxed person to be around. Sometimes.
Have you changed in getting older? Do you think you have calmed down?
