Feeling outgrown
Welcome to my 2021 newsletter, a project born out of a the major fail that was my 2020 podcast plan. I wanted to host conversations with people about issues I care and think about a lot: political correctness, body positivity, food culture… oh and the links between Taylor Swift and medieval literature.
I’d even bought two Blue Yeti microphones, had laid out plans for constructive discussions and was ready to start recording with relevant people, until lockdown happened. So yeah… 2020 was not the year for all the great conversations I’d hoped to orchestrate.
Instead, like the rest of us, I got stuck at home, with nothing to do but work. And the more intense work got, the less I did the things that make me happy. Heck, I didn’t bake a single loaf of sourdough in the last months of 2020… I realised that the less I did, the less I seemed to want to do. My mind became numb, and all it could cope with during my free time was diving into my phone screen (after spending +10 hours a day working on another) to gaze at the things other people were creating, thinking, saying, achieving. Meanwhile there I was, just scrolling, sometimes at 3am, unable to sleep, struggling with a really strange feeling I’m starting to become familiar with.
It was that conflicting point whereby your past self has reached what you expected in life, but your present self has already moved past these expectations. And thus instead of giving you the content you’d once hoped for, they start to make you feel too tight.
I don’t think this is that classic tension between chasing desires and finding happiness. Rather, it’s about outgrowing who you once were.
Perhaps I have not grown out of my 1m56 height since the age of 13 but just because I still fit in my teenage clothes, doesn’t mean I still want to wear them. Or that I have the same ignorant views I had as a high school student. And in many regards, I am proud and happy to have changed and hope to keep on growing into a different (better I hope !) person each day.
But some ideals are harder to shake up than others: relationships, dream job, life projections. These pillars that have expectations built-in at their core, because otherwise you would never be driven to climb them in the first place. But I’m learning to appreciate the climb itself, rather than what I hope to find at the top. Because if the hope is to never stop growing, then it’s ok if some of the things you once strived for eventually feel outgrown. And it’s even better if this feeling can become a source of fuel for writing down the views and ideas I wish I could discuss with all of you.
So welcome to Outgrown, a writing space where I hope to delve into various topics which I hope you will find engaging :)
Pauline
Image credit: Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll