finding identity in... what, exactly?

Nowadays, our identity is reduced to what we put on the internet—our Instagram bio, our Indeed page, our Hinge profile. Prompts ranging from bible verses to job history to “I go crazy for” are overthought, or for some, way under-thought, and then filled out according to what we think puts our best foot forward. But what happens when our entire identity has to be narrowed down to one profile? Or worse, when we don’t even know what our identity looks like and we’re asked to put it on (digital) paper?

Coming home for the summer has once again sent me spiraling with one big question: who am I now without the routine and people that make up my school life? This feels a bit similar to the first blog I published, one about the shift from school to home and the lack of direction I feel in that. Now, however, I’m a completely different person from the girl I was almost a year ago, writing in her bedroom about crazed internal feelings. Okay, maybe not completely different, but you get the gist.

The other day I drove to my sister’s work to drop off some stuff she had forgotten at work, and on my way back I picked up a burrito and a cold brew and started thinking. How much of my identity is found in the routines I so quickly fall back into or the songs I’ve just found? So there I was, driving from Starbucks to my house, and listening to Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter (um, hello?? What did she put in that song because I can’t stop replaying it) and I was hit with the realization that every part of my being is just completely made up of those around me. 

Can I just make a quick disclaimer? For some reason, I feel like as a 20 (almost 21) year-old woman, I feel like I’m entering that stage where I need to justify my “last year of college” course list, my career plan, my dating life, the amount I’m reading, etc. etc.. I know that these concerns fall under the category of cliché and part of it (hello, career and love life!) can be postponed a tad, but being at home gives me a minute to start thinking about these things, not just school! I’m aware that these are all very normal things to be thinking about, but as identity begs to be written individually, I beg to be seen by my comrades in this widespread search for answers. The answer I’m looking for? Who am I?

If I were to narrow down my identity to a 3x5 size notecard version of “Get to Know Me,” it would read as follows: 

20; Woman; 5’7”; Writer?; Wannabe avid reader; Aspiring Carrie Bradshaw (with the shoes, without the cigarettes); Utterly and completely amenable to anything cute I see on Pinterest.

Even in this bite-sized introduction to me, it is both so limiting and so revealing. You have your basics: age, gender, height, general interests. Then, we find room for assumptions in Pinterest boards, SATC rewatches, low attention span (proven by my Goodreads history), etc. 

I think that first realizing what identity is and what it encompasses has been helpful to me as I try to figure out what mine looks like. There are the external factors, like my age and height and my current status in life. But then there are the internal factors, factors that contribute to decisions I make and people I surround myself with. Things like my beliefs, my values, my education. All of these components add up, converging into one being: me. Once I define the categories for said components, I'll assess what parts of my life goes into each category. 

The assigning part is a little hard for me. It helps to take a step back and try to view myself from an objective, third-party perspective. For me, I've learned a trick or two in therapy so it has become relatively easy to pull an aspect of my life out and look at it, kind of like Harry Potter and the Pensieve in Dumbledore's office. 

After I have looked a bit deeper at the core things that make up who I am and my identity, my 3x5 notecard doesn’t provide enough space to hold who I am. And should it ever? Do I need to narrow it down or can I just get away with saying my identity is only as small as the things, or places and people, that I draw it from? And with that question, a more serious one pops into my mind: is my identity entirely mine, or is it just the sum of what I  have collected from others over the years?

In my blog post about daffodils, I mentioned that I make my bed the same way my grandfather made his. Recently, I’ve become more aware that a lot of who I am or what I do comes from my friends, my family, and even those whom I met once in the library. Today I ordered my friend’s coffee order because once she let me try her iced latte and I loved it. I doodle little flowers in the margins of my notes in the same style my sister showed me when I was little. 

Larger things, perhaps even more significant things, are also results of those around me. If I had not been born into the household I was, would I be encouraged to pursue my passions the way I have been? Would I be a Christian if I didn’t have a mother who encouraged me to pray every night as I was growing up? Would I see the world the same if I had not had the friends in high school that I did? Would I, would I, would I? So many questions, so many things in my 20 years of life that have shaped me and my identity. 

A professor of mine summed up a bulk of John Donne’s writing by saying to our class (and now I’m the one paraphrasing here): at the end of our lives, we are a product of the love we have shown or been shown throughout our time on earth. Again, that was me paraphrasing because I’ve forgotten exactly what he said. But at any rate, I think I might take this a bit further and ask, if at the end of our lives we are the sum of the love we’ve experienced, doesn’t that mean we are always the sum of love, regardless of the stage of life we are in? 

We are always the product of the experiences that have brought us this far, and thus we must be a product of the love shown to us, or that we have shown to others. Is that what identity is? A product of love? I don’t mean romantic love, but the simple and complex (contradictory, I know) love of relationships, passing encounters, the treatment of others, etc. Does that make sense? Has the virtue of love been active in creating every part of us and our identities? I think so.

Is that an answer to my questions? A blanket “love” to slap over my questions like a band-aid? It can be an infuriating answer, but for me, right now, it is an answer that I can fully accept. It is both the easiest answer, and the hardest to understand.

That is where I am at. It's been a long time since I've been able to write something like this, so I hope you forgive me as I'm a bit rusty. It's been a long few months without posting on Abundant Thoughts, but now that my semester is over I'm hoping I'll start to find things to write about (and that I will follow through on).

Thank you, as always, for reading. I hope these questions are something we can relate on, because how else will we explore answers, if not with each other?