The Invitation

A few days ago, a dear friend invited me to join in something that pushes the edges of my sense of self. Nothing dangerous or illegal, not even too silly (which I’d rarely decline anyway), but something that would require me to enhance and enlarge a part of my identity, and to move toward reclaiming a part of life I’d long ago given up as being impossible for me. I based my sense of self on what I thought I could do in life, and the types of things that were for others, but not me. So I excluded these things, without much regret, as it’s fairly easy to adjust to not having what’s not yours to have. I went on to build a fruitful and successful life within the confines of my mind and my personality, leaving out the bits I thought needed to be left out.

I’m fairly sure I’m not unique in honing myself down to some of my better qualities and characteristics, and foregoing others that seem out of reach or unlikely to work out. We’ve all given up ways of being in the service of promoting our development in other ways. We give up study for sports, travel for gardening, risk-taking for safety, sexuality for sleep (or sleep for sexuality!), intensity for stability, career exploration for insurance benefits, creativity for practicality, commitment for adventure . . . There’s no end to the variety of human experiences we could embrace and own, but instead we tend to limit ourselves to a very small slice of life’s pie.

Most people I know attain some level of their identity and there they stop. They create a life around that identity, which further reinforces it and makes straying from it impossible. And for many people, this is enough. This is life. On the other end of the continuum are the serial seekers – who want more and more and pursue path after path, which may or may not result in growth, but definitely in shifts and jolts of their sense of who they are.

I’m on neither side of that continuum. I don’t want to stop growing, but I don’t want to be forever searching and therefore unfulfilled because I’ve not arrived yet. I can look back to a few deepenings in my own life, so that the person I am today is not exactly the person I started out as. I’m not so different as to be unrecognizable as me, but I’ve not sat idly on a once-built sense of self. Some of these changes I sought out, some bonked me over the head when something essential in my life was challenged or taken away.

I like to think that I see the purpose of human experience as being additive – that we grow and peel away old and no-longer-useful ways of being and replace them with people and experiences and a sense of self that is stronger and more flexible. That the journey unceasingly goes from one moment of doing OK to taking a deep breath and starting the path to the next, deeper, more authentic us. And the cycle continues, without any finish line. Not quite like Prometheus, who pushes the same boulder up the same mountain, and not necessarily like the Phoenix, who is reborn after going down in flames. I’m thinking of something far less dramatic, but also something that most myth and fiction evade: the quest that doesn’t end, the journey that never leads back home. Becoming as a process. I am becoming. I have become. I will become. I am never done becoming me (if I am, I’m either stagnating or dead or holier than I will ever be, so I’d prefer the journey – I think).

Back to the invitation. I love this friend. I’ve shared some of my journey with this person, and it’s led to opening and growth, a deeper, truer sense of identity. Now it’s my friend’s turn, offering up a compelling invitation to me to add something in that will broaden my life. I have heard myself give me every reason to go ahead and step into the unknown. I can’t come up with a single “con” to counterbalance all the “pro’s.” There’s really no foreseeable drawback, except for the reworking of me, the giving up a strong sense that I must remain in the confines of the self I’ve built. And just so we’re clear, I happen to like the self I’ve built and rebuilt up to this point. It’s my best self to date. It’s this pull to stay the same that makes me hesitate. It’s one thing to rebuild ourselves from pain or the sense that if we don’t we risk staying in an unpleasant and unfulfilled version of ourselves. How do we rebuild if we risk losing a pretty good version of ourselves? I, who am involved daily with people reworking their sense of self, am at a crossroads to do a similar thing. Again.

Recognizing the internal belly flops and restless sleep as I pondered the invitation has shown me that I’ve fallen into the trap of resting on my identity laurels. I haven’t been journeying quite as much as I could have recently. I’ve paused the growth cycle, spending so much time reveling in this destination that I forgot to keep going. I basically have been on an extended picnic blanket when I should be packing up and heading onward. But here is my friend, extending a hand to help me up, encouraging me to pack up the basket and all the treats I've brought, brush the leaves and grass from my clothes, say goodbye to this beautiful place, and continue on. “There are more wonders ahead,” my friend is saying. “I’ll lead you there. Come with me.”

It’s a chance to become more. I’d be me but not me. Me more fully me. Me in a way I haven’t been before. I’ve been secretly hoping for this invitation because I can't get here on my own; I’d built all the usual beliefs around why I'm not that kind of person. But maybe I will be that kind of person.

All that remains is for me to say, “Yes.” And, “Thank you,” for inviting me.

I'll leave behind the best me I’ve ever had the pleasure of living in, with the hope that what’s next will be worth it. I’ll have new areas of insecurity, new victories, new ways of being vulnerable and hurt, and new ways of experiencing myself, others and life as a whole. I could grow old with these new ways of being, and at some point in the future these will be embedded in the Me that underlies my next reworking.

I realize I’m hurrying now, my thoughts are short and breathless. I don’t want to miss this opportunity. I have my answer:

Give me a moment to pack up my picnic things.
I’m coming with you.
You lead this time; I’ll follow.
Yes.
Thank you.