Reinventing yourself isn’t easy. You can feel confident and write it out with a fire you haven’t felt in a long time, but actually doing it, that is the hard part. It’s like you are torn between these two personalities and don’t know which one is real. It’s kind of feels like an identity crisis. Some days you feel really good about the direction you are going. Some days you question why you started down this path at all.
It’s been a few months since I made the decision to reinvent myself. Since I did, I’ve had many ups and downs and have questioned myself more times than I can count. Why did I decide to start going by Crystie? Why am I trying to live without masking? Why am I not pushing myself to be an extrovert who spends more time with people than by herself? Why? Who have I offended? Why won’t so-and-so call me by Crystie? Do they think it is dumb? Will family and friends respect who I am becoming or are they going to hate me? So. Many. Questions.
One thing that has really been impacting me is my confidence in my career. I have started off slower at my current role than any other role in the last 10 years. I question my abilities more and more. I have no confidence in making decisions. I’m utterly scared of doing things wrong. I’m questioning why I was hired. I look back and see that my confidence waned when I started making changes in who I am.
I know that any change can be difficult. I also know that change takes time. I know that even though I am changing myself, I am the same person I’ve always been. I am merely changing which traits are forced traits and which traits are inherent. My confidence in my career was always easy, so I thought. Was it really? Or was I truly faking it behind a mask? I believe it is a combination of both.
It’s not just about my career either. I have questioned my goals and hobbies. I have questioned every little thing. With every question comes more questions, sometimes with answers, sometimes without. I feel like I no longer know what I’m doing in life or with my life. I am not sure if I want something because I want it or because I think I want it because so-and-so has it. I really want to stay home all the time. But I also want to get out and explore.
You know what is easy? Staying home. Not talking to anybody. Becoming a hermit because everything else is so hard. That is easy. At least in the everything but money parts of life.
You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to do hard things. I’m going to keep reinventing myself. I’m going to keep learning who I am. I’m going to keep pushing myself to get out of the house and do the exploring I yearn to do. I’m going to find my voice in my career. No, I’m going to reinvent my voice in my career. I’m going to do hard things. I am Crystie. I am me and that’s who I’ll be.
Life. The imperfect way. 