When you were born, you could
have been anybody. So quick and malleable, your parents could look at your face
and see a future president. They tried to mold you as you grew, but they could
only work with what they had. And when their tools stopped working, they slowly
handed off to you, asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
There's a certain art to becoming who you are.
A teenage personality is a
delicate medium, its emotions are almost too heavy to handle. You have to keep
yourself together, and tease out the good parts without stretching yourself too
thin. You can never stop moving for too long, or focus on just one side of your
personality, or you'll fall out of balance, and never stand on your own two
feet.
You can't ignore your
flaws-you see them so clearly-but you can't just fix them either, and force
yourself to change. And you need to make it look effortless, even if you keep
getting burned. But the toughest thing to master is the sense that your
personality is hardening over time. That the fire that kept you flexible all
these years is dimming, and you're becoming set in your ways.
You can still recall the heat
of youth, that once kept you warm on a dingy couch, or a night in the
wilderness, or a wandering summer. At any given time you remained untouchable,
because you were 'not yourself today.' You knew that you weren't just you, you
were also the person you will one day become, finding comfort in the lines,
"I am not I. I am the one walking beside me...who stays calm and silent
while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who
will remain standing when I die."
But now it's hard to deny that
you are anyone but yourself; you are who you are, for better or for worse. For
all your wondering what kind of person you were going to become, somewhere you
forgot that question actually has an answer, and that 'one day' will soon
arrive, if it hasn't already. Now you wonder if you can change, even if you
wanted to.
If you have enough fire in the
belly to surprise yourself. Or if you're too tough and cynical to stretch
without shattering. Of course, maybe who you are is just fine, and dreaming of
being someone else would only keep you from being your best self. Or maybe that
doesn't really matter.
Maybe it's already too late...
The Bass Player
*
