#29 - The Performance of Self

Living alone turns out to be one of my favorite things I’ve ever done.

As someone who is now quite aware of just how much of my behavior was done for the benefit of other people, it’s incredibly reassuring to find out who I am when no one is watching. It turns out, this version of myself it’s remarkably similar to who I put in front of the world! What immense relief.

The only other time I lived on my own was when I had a single dorm my sophomore year of college, and that was, uh, a dark time. I definitely was not in a place to be assessing how much I was living for myself vs. others. I hadn’t even moved to New York City yet! There was very little honest self-discovery happening there.

I had a conversation this week about how you find New York when you need it. The city is always here, waiting for you. When I moved to the city for the summer before my junior year, it changed my entire life trajectory. I somehow managed to push myself through finishing college early, just so I could get back here as soon as possible. Because who I had discovered that summer didn’t exist elsewhere, and that was the best version of me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the versions of myself that people have gotten to know. I was so different in different places, different parts of my life. I realized the other day that I didn’t have anxiety during high school, I was cringy and weird, sure, but I had very little self-awareness and bulldozed my way through those years. I was weirdly involved, I put myself out there with very little fear. And then…I went to college and my entire personality collapsed in on itself and the anxiety was so bad I spent three years throwing up every single morning and never told anyone about it!

(I mean, people knew, but I never like, sought medical intervention. Whoops!!)

But that version of me, the college version, was the only me that a lot of people ever got to know. And I know that wasn’t me, it was me imitating what I thought people wanted because I’ve never been more dehumanized than I was in Ithaca, New York.

But then I moved, and I thought I had laid the regrets to rest, and I moved back to the city and thought I would blossom into the person I had always meant to become.

(But there was a con man that like, kinda ruined me and all my friend’s lives, and the fallout from that was far more severe than any of us could like…process at that moment, so I spent six months getting rejected from jobs that I kept almost getting, falling asleep on the couch anytime I could be convinced to smoke a spliff, and wearing down my mattress so that by the time I left there were about three inches left between me and the floor it laid on.)

So, I fled west. And, to be honest, the west coast was a mistake. Not in a totally negative way, I had a lot of fun and met some very cool people and got a (now abandoned) career path out of it, and I entered into a relationship with someone who knew me in college, and so the college version of me that had been witnessed stayed alive. For another seven years.

Yikes!

I didn’t like myself in college. I was bitter, anxious, overly-critical, and fucking miserable. I went to college really excited to learn, to be challenged, so I tried really hard in the beginning, only to realize that my minimal efforts were more than enough by the end. (Have you ever had to debate politics with someone who uses the ultimate argument of “well I would just move” when you point out poverty cycles within certain areas, and then when you point out that some people don’t have cars or the money to move their possessions, they snort back, “Well, I’m certainly not walking”? Yeah, uh, Brad, feels like you may be missing the point there buddy. Some people, in fact, cannot ask their parents for money to help them move!!)

Anyway, I hadn’t realized that I was…performing elements of self that I had long ago outgrown. It’s scary to rapidly change, and for me, it became almost impossible while I was in a relationship. I always felt like I was accidentally duped my ex into dating me (not because I actually had, but more like because of the crippling self-esteem issues that lead me to believe no one ever seriously would want to of their own volition). It felt like I had lied to her all those years ago and was just keeping up with those lies. In college I wore makeup every day, I tried my best to seem over it, and I had long abandoned hope of making connections. I was trying to be fun and chill and laidback (three words that have never been used in tandem to describe me!).

The performance of self when that self has very little to do with who I actually was exhausting. And now that I’ve ended the Phantom-esque run of College Claire, like all Broadway shows this spring, I too am retooling before the reboot to appeal to broader audiences! (Did this metaphor get away from me at record speed? Yes, yes it did.)

I’m trying to ask myself if I’m doing things for approval because it turns out I am someone who relies entirely on external validation and it is an addiction that I need to break. I have realized that I can never be truly happy with myself and fully at peace if I don’t learn to validate myself. To let myself live without fear of judgment—not even the judgment of others at this point, just my own!! I am my harshest critic, and it’s wild to me how often I cut myself down before I ever get the chance to grow.

« Beastie Boys in unison » listen all y'all, it's self-sabotaaaaaaage

I had a very long, very silly debate with myself for the entire month of February as to why I was even using Instagram. Did I want responses, was I seeking evidence of approval through likes, what was I documenting on there, and why? And it turns out, the answer wasn’t that complicated or deep! I like taking photos, I always have, I’ve never had any particular interest in really growing my expertise, and I find it interesting to look back and see what I curated from those days. So I posted at weird times on purpose to test my theory that I still wanted to post even when things got 2 likes. I realized that it’s okay if my Instagram does not say everything about me. I don’t think I say most things about myself through any of my social media channels.

(I have never not once ranted about regulations online and that’s like 30% of what’s coming out of my mouth at any given time in real life! It’s okay to allow that to be true, it’s okay to not care that much about the full representation of myself on an app that I don’t actually want my more intimate self preserved on. I like that the entire platform has absolutely no fucking clue what to advertise to me! I am more powerful than the algorithm ahahahah!)

(Also, in an ironic twist of fate, I ended up randomly reconnecting with one of my friends from college who also admitted that their college-era self was not the best version to have met, and we had been mutually mourning what we could have had if our mental health had been better at the time, and then because we are both Irish we purposefully alleviated ourselves and each other of that guilt. Nature is healing viiibes 💚)

It’s a slow process, unlearning the truths I held onto for so long that I thought were keeping me safe. It’s great that I’m listening to music again. I don’t have to worry about what it says that I stopped for so long. It’s wonderful that I am purposefully working on my anxiety and I don’t have to feel stupid about the reflexes of my body that are so earnestly trying to keep me safe. I have to live with myself forever. No one else has to, just me.

And holy shit wouldn’t it be great if I spent the rest of that time enjoying myself? Wouldn’t it be a more beautiful world if I stopped berating myself for past choices I have no control over changing? Isn’t the goal and the dream to love myself unabashedly rather than hope others will inform me of the conditions under which I have to earn theirs?

I think so! And the red hair is long gone so, hello world!!