Sometimes the role begins wearing us.
Field Notes
Most of us spend our lives becoming someone.
The funny one. The dependable one. The easygoing one. The successful one. The beautiful one. The strong one. The person who never needs help. The one everyone can count on.
At first, they’re simply ways of moving through the world. But over time, they gather expectations—our own and everyone else’s. We stop asking who we are beneath them because the role becomes easier to perform than to question.
The strange part is that none of these identities are fixed. They are stories we learn to tell, then slowly mistake for ourselves.
Perhaps the hardest mask to remove is the one that no longer feels like a mask at all.
You are allowed to outgrow a role without outgrowing yourself.