I’ve been using ChatGPT a lot lately, and several times it has commented on my intentionality. I don’t know if I am that much more so than the average person; maybe, because one of the things I struggle to understand is how people do things ‘by accident’. Either way, it made me remember something I had written some time ago, and I decided to go dig it out. Five and a half years ago, it turns out. I wrote it intending for it to be a blog post, apparently, but somehow chose not to post it. I don’t remember why not; I hadn’t even remembered that I had finished it. I considered posting it now, as is, but that didn’t sit quite right.

Five and a half years ago. Before I had a business. Before I had a daughter. Just a few months after we stopped dressing like Mennonites. How much of who I am and how I think is still the same?

And then I decided, let’s find out. Together. Let’s read it, and I will tell you what I think now, versus what I thought then.

—

“You do that with so much concentration,” he said, watching me.

“How am I supposed to do it?”

“Just as comes naturally.”

But if I just did it as comes naturally, I wouldn’t do it at all. 

• This is the part that I remembered. And I clearly remember the moment itself. I still like this opening. I would still use it.

It doesn’t come naturally. Almost nothing comes naturally to me, because I’m always thinking about everything. It’s like I was transplanted into this body and I can’t get used to it. I’m so aware of everything. I can’t walk without thinking about it. Sometimes it’s like I even forget to breathe and then I find myself gasping for air.

• Okay, little dramatic there, Jen. It’s not quite THAT extreme.

I don’t know if it’s my gift – or my curse. Self-awareness is the only path to growth that I have yet found. Self-awareness is the only thing that guards my life and my relationships from the ravages of my feelings. But self-consciousness becomes a heavy burden to carry if you can never put it down, and self-centered is an ugly and idolatrous thing to be.

• Ew. I don’t like that last line. Not because it’s not true, but because it tastes like it was written for other people. I was still in the proving-I’m-still-a-Christian stage then.

The good part is that I can never play the victim – I know my choices are my choices, I know that I made them in full awareness of what they are. Of course, I cannot predict all the outcomes of the choices I make, but generally these things are more obvious than we’d like to pretend. The good part is that I get to deliberately choose and create the life I have, and I don’t have to spend my days mired in regrets. I read about people being swept away by their feelings, saying things like ‘I couldn’t help it, I lost control, the heat of the moment, etc etc’, and I’m just like…how? Is that even a real thing? Is it just an excuse for people to do things that they really know they shouldn’t? Or am I really that unusual in my lack of abandon? I’m not over here claiming to never do foolish things – I’m saying when I buy a Dr Pepper at the grocery store, I do it in full awareness that it is a poor choice. When I say something unkind, I know that I am doing it. Doesn’t everyone? I may later repent of doing the wrong thing, but I can never pretend like it wasn’t my choice to do that wrong thing. And there’s a freedom and a power in taking responsibility for your life.

• This I still agree with, generally speaking. 

The bad part is that, if I am present and functioning in this world, I am almost constantly thinking about myself. It’s exhausting and irritating and it makes me dislike the person that I am because it is self-centered. I used to think I’m proud – and I am. But it’s not the kind of pride that thinks I’m truly wonderful or truly terrible – I know that I am only wonderful in some areas and terrible in others, just like any other human – it’s the kind of pride where I think of myself too much. I exaggerate my importance in the world. Not that I think that I am that important in anyone else’s eyes. But I am too large in my own eyes. I take up too much of my own mind-space. And that’s worse.

• Hm. This girl needed to read my Utility of Selfishness post – actually, I guess she needed to write it. And so she did, two years later. But she was right in that she was too self-obsessed. She just had no idea what the way out would be. She thought it was a matter of making herself smaller.

Why am I like this? Was I always? I think most adolescents are highly self-conscious, but I remember experiencing that feeling of seeing yourself from outside when I was far younger. I think, maybe, that my memories start with self-consciousness. Is this how it is for everyone?

• I still wondered about this, specifically about the link between memory and self-awareness. So I did some light research and apparently there is actually something there. There are several things that contribute to a child beginning to form lasting memories, and an essential piece is self-awareness, because if there is no ‘me’ there is no ‘my experience’.

Sometimes I blame it on my head. I am intensely cerebral. I live in my mind so much that I lose touch with my body. I dissociate from my body. Sometimes it feels like a prison to me and I want to tear myself open and escape from the skin. Sometimes it’s just a foreign place and I can feel every inch of it, everything it touches. Sometimes I get lost in my mind and I forget that my body exists.

• Unfortunately, I can still relate to this, but it’s so much better than it used to be. I’m a little more comfortable in my body on most days. Physical discomfort is still really hard for me to just accept, and I still have to work to remember to take care of my physical form. But now when I feel like escaping from my skin, I call it being overstimulated instead of assuming it’s a sign I need to leave this mortal coil. 

This week I did a little survey where I asked people where they feel like their soul lives – in which part of their body. There were several who said that they feel they live in every part of their body, some who said they live in both their head and their heart, but the vast majority voted that their soul lives in their heart or their chest. There was only one person who said they live in their head. I did this survey because I only recently realized that my own inclination to touch my head when I am referring to myself is an unusual one – most people will touch their chest. Most people feel their heart is the center of their being. I feel my head is the center of my being, but that is partly because I choose it to be so. My heart I think is the center of my feelings. I don’t trust my feelings. They lie. My head may be warped and twisted, but at least it tries to align itself with truth.

• Fascinating. I fascinate myself. Hehe. I’d forgotten about that survey, but that is still interesting to me. And the part where I touch my head when referring to myself is still true, I think. But I am much less harsh on my feelings now. I understand the purpose of their existence better. And I don’t think they lie so much as they are a result of my beliefs, the stories I’ve told myself over and over. Sometimes those stories aren’t true; more often they’re only pieces of truth. It’s not the job of feelings to provide or prove empirical facts. And truth is often more complex than my head can comprehend.

There’s really no point in me writing a blog post about this except that someone remarked that my last blog post made me sound almost perfect. (I generally think if anyone can imagine that I view myself as perfect, they must be blinded. I think this so much that it seems ridiculous to always be saying ‘Jenny isn’t perfect’. Well, obviously not. Tell us something we don’t know.) But the bit they thought was too perfect sounding was the bit where I said I can still feel the wonder of being married to my husband. I won’t take that back. I can still feel it. And I think it’s mostly because I choose to feel it. I choose to live in wonder of him. It’s not that hard. Most humans are full of wonder if you just stop to look at them. But I also think it’s partly because of this – because nothing comes naturally, everything about my life seems a little unreal, a little strange and surprising to me.

• I don’t remember who this person was, but in case they remember and they’re reading this: it’s coming up on ten years now and guess what: I CAN STILL FEEL THE WONDER OF BEING MARRIED TO MY HUSBAND. Giggle. For real it’s not hard, if I just stop and pay attention to the right things. Doesn’t mean it’s always easy to stop and pay attention to the right things, though.

__

Conclusion: the biggest changes are I’m more comfortable with who I am and I’m less comfortable using words like ALWAYS and EVERYTHING – so apparently I’m both more and less confident than I was. Heh. 

But that was an interesting and oddly comforting exercise. It showed me I have grown, but not so much that I don’t recognize myself. I know her. I am her. But I am also more.

If you read something you wrote five years ago, what do you think you would think? How much of who you were is still who you are?