The Me Before

I don’t think everyone has a “Me Before” period.  I am sure people have the me before kids phase, or if you were ever an addict, the me before I nearly killed myself or ruined my entire life; and there are other types of me before phases.  I guarantee many people have these varying phases, but I do feel they usually only exist stronger for the dreamers or the leapers.   

What is the Me Before.  Well, the me before is looking at pictures of myself in epic travels, or looking at times like I could be a model for a budget magazine and then looking at pictures of the now.  The person who never wears makeup, hair is graying, never does my hair, oftentimes wears unmatched clothes person, could be potentially homeless, homebody, this is the now.

I have always been what can be best diagnosed as a versatile person.  Some might say it borders on bi-polar or split personalities, but mine never had a diagnosis, nor do I actually think I suffer from any mental illness other than OCCD.  I like many, many things.  And when I like something, I usually participate in it, and not just tap your toe in the water, I tend to go all out.  But none of the things ever seem to match.  I am fairly eco conscious for example: I have a clothes line and I use it, I never leave water running longer than it needs to, I try not to buy balloons unless it’s a special bday like the first one, I thrift shop as much as possible, I recycle, I compost, I will eat food I don’t want to not waste it.  But on the opposite side of this, I throw theme parties where countless amounts of amazon boxes, plastic garbage goods, decorations are purchased that I donate, but majority of it will just be thrown away. 

I think my life has had some distinct varying phases.  There is the me before college, the me during college, me after Nevada, the me during Equatorial Guinea, the me after EG, and the me after Z.  Each phase varies so much it could almost be a different person.  Me before college is probably the most similar to a lot of people’s experiences.  Pre-college, I was a quiet girl, I was not so around my friends but I would by no means call myself outgoing and was borderline shy with low confidence.  The me during college was best described as the start of various points of my life where the movie the hangover was taped like in the Truman show, but long before that idea was born.  I once challenged a 300 lb. Samoan football player to a drink chugging contest as a sopping wet 115 lb. girl at a frat party and won.  I was confident, I attempted things I had never done before and just went for it.  I had the feeling that nothing was out of my reach.

Me after Nevada was all business which was weird because during college I would say I attempted everything but the business of studying.  I didn’t make a lot of friends in the early Nevada phase of my life, my confidence in my personal life wavered, I felt I didn’t fit in, I focused on work and that is where my confidence was placed and up the chain I went and fast, but the confidence definitely was not showing outside of my work space at this time.  I felt intimidated by socializing, like I was somewhat weird, and tended to do things that really just felt more grown up than the age I was.  I bought a house at 24 years old, I bought a brand new car at 22, I did home remodeling and really settled into a 30-year-old life style all by the time I was 25.  I guess there might be a mid-phase in Nevada, whereby I did start to make friends and party a bit.  We had some wild times, but nothing compared to the during college or during EG days.

Me during EG was like re-living the college me, however in a different way.  I still partied hardy, the difference is the career Tabitha had entered the room.  I never neglected my job during this phase, if anything I dug my heels into work even more.  Outside of work time, I traveled and the majority of it was alone.  I had my good friends at work and outside of work who I saw when I could.  However I saw the opportunity and I basically emphasized the “seize the moment”.  As someone with roundtrip first class tickets to and from home, I could transfer those anywhere, and I did.  I swam in the Amazon of Brasil with fresh water pink dolphins and fished for piranhas that we ate for dinner off a canoe in the middle of a legit jungle.  I took a tour trip in India by myself with a solo driver I wasn’t even sure was a tour guide to the most majestic ancient caves, which I had the divine experience of an Indian woman singing in a cave, and the echo was like something touching into my core taunting me to find my spiritual center.  I partied in Edinburgh by myself an evening and ran into a crew of American business men and stayed up all night partying just for the sheer joy of it.  I drank caipirinha’s on the beaches in Brazil while white girl dancing with an all Brazilian crew of people of which I only knew one person going into it, who was a girl I had met one night at a bar in Houston.  I stayed at the house of a lovely Australian couple, whom I met in Iceland another night years prior, which was in an awesome yet desolate part of the Perth countryside and enjoyed every minute of it.   I didn’t go on every journey alone.  There were many other fun memories with people I knew or worked with and that was equally great.  But I think the solo journeys were more impactful, more bravery was required, more gusto, and certainly a lot of wildness came from them.  They were not all parties, but just soul searching, solo times where I became more and more of who I was. I did what I wanted, what drew me in, what moved me.  I had courage and creativity.

Me after EG was a very different beast.  I entered a job which I put everything into and encountered a very different experience, where I did not get back everything I put in.  It was frustrating, and at times I started to question my own ability in the work front. In my personal life, the fearlessness began to fade when not everything was so enchanting.  I had the feeling I needed to grow up, that I should not be this wild partier anymore, or that I shouldn’t take such large leaps and be so “weird” and that I should be a “certain” way.  The me of old started to slowly diminish.  I won’t say any one thing was the sole contributor, however I felt no longer like there was nothing I couldn’t do, my luck started to downturn on a variety of business fronts, my health went down, I gained weight, and I gained vertigo, I literally felt the opposite of light and free.  It was like the magic was gone and not because I sat in economy flights anymore and wasn’t sipping cocktails on a beach in the Philippines.  There was way more to it than that. I started acting a part of which I was not very good at.  And everything started to lose its luster.

Me after Z phase was the most multifaceted.  Z being my future husband partner of 8 years.  The phase has less to do with him really and more to do with me trying to regain me again after years of losing it, after an attempt to get it back, all while sticking within the societal guardrails.  He already had children, so I stepped into step mom role.  I won’t get into this much because if you’ve been a step-anything, you can never be right and will always be wrong.  But it wasn’t exactly a normal scenario.  I kind of leaped into the deep end of it.  I took care of the kids every weekend, and I mean every weekend, mostly by myself only because Z worked nights for several years.  I did everything with them, it’s fair to say during these first 3 years we did everything most parents do in a matter of 10 years from crafts to kid events, to functions, you name it.  I loved these years truly.  However, all while this was occurring I was running a newer business, in the early phases of our love story, navigating the parenting waters, I was trying to get pregnant, switched from my business back to private, and so many things in between.  Trying to get pregnant and that hormonal fuck (literal) is one entire book for another year.  The gist here is the waters weren’t just tumultuous, the river took large turns, sometimes the levee broke, sometimes it was dry and trickling.  It was like trying to tube down a dry rocky river at times, it was painful.  The period of this time of life was defined by me, finding me again but also me figuring who I was in middle age.  I knew how to act and be as a younger person.  Being kind of wild so to speak at the younger years was almost acceptable.  Continuing to be wild as you enter mid-30s is looked at as irresponsible, like you never grew up.  Recently I posted about societal expectations and for a large portion of my life I ignored those.  During parts of the me with Z, I started to follow them.  And while following them, I started to drown in those ever-changing waters.   So many changes occurred in the early phases of this period of my life, I think anyone would lose themselves a bit. 

Later becoming a biological mom, I lost all of me.  I guess this is a phase for me, just like anyone who takes on a mom role.  A new you has to be born as you navigate these waters, that is it, there is no way you stay the same.  Every part of your being is exploited: your mind, your body, your sanity, your time.  I don’t even mean earthly children.  I suffered horrendous miscarriages which changed me.  I suffered periods when I didn’t get pregnant and thought I should.  The minute having kids entered the room, everything about me changed.  Each pregnancy and loss literally changed the chemistry in my brain and the shape of my body.  The fearless person I was once was lost to parental worries which are constant.  The me of before any period seemingly was long gone.  And that’s how motherhood takes hold of you.  It started for me with the girls, I worried about them, I thought about their presents, birthday parties, and if they were safe, if their friends were good, how to teach them the right things.  But once I developed a child in my body, every part of whom I was seemingly became lost.  I was not adventurous, I was too tired, I was not creative, my brain could barely speak my native language, I was scared of everything, I was angry a lot, physically my appearance shifted.  I do think every piece of the me before changed.  Was it lost forever, I don’t think so.  Coming out of the baby years and into some toddler time I see how life will continue to change and I may gather some of the me before back, but I will never ever be the same. 

But as I look through whatever the phases of my life have been: the fearing, the fearless; the wanderer, the homebody; the wild, the tame; they come in waves.  Sometimes you have control of them and other times life kind of tosses you around into these varying phases.  However, the good news and I feel this for me, is whatever phase it is right now, it will change again and morph into a new one.  So although I may feel a bit over worked by my regular job, completely mentally drained from my toddlers, absolutely exhausted from 8 months of pregnancy, un-creative, overwhelmed and full of fears, I know it will come full circle again sometime.  I again will regain the ability to be fearless, full of confidence, and moving through the motions of life like floating on clouds.  In this Me phase it’s a bit of a swimming upstream, but it’s fun to look back at the multi Me Before phases and remember that she is still in there and what great times she has had and will continue to.