she just forgot for a little while

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“She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while.”

Donald Miller

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I am going to stick my neck out a bit here and say I think most of us know who we are. Sometimes the lines seem a little vaguish, but I think, generally speaking, we know who we are. I begin there to frame “forgot for a little while.” “Who I am” is a moving target. As Whitman said, we are multitudes. But our center is generally our center and while the clothes our center wears may change with the seasons, the center is the center.

Which leads me to a thought I saw somewhere: “we all break our own rules for someone.”

Well. We do. In fact, we even do it in some situations. But it seems to be more important when we break our own rules for another human being. Its just a bit more personal. Break our own rules sometimes feels like forgetting who we are, but its not. You are clearly, well, breaking your own rules. That suggests you know exactly who you are. Anyway. We beat the shit out of ourselves when we do his. I wonder if we should just apologize to ourselves instead. Apologize for putting up with something you didn’t really deserve – and you knew it wasn’t something you deserved. Look. Just because you are at peace with yourself, at peace with who and what you are, doesn’t mean that you will not war with yourself on occasion. I would argue those little wars are you checking on yourself. Checking on whether you should adapt; or not adapt. So maybe ‘forgetting’ is really permitting curiosity (or hope) win out – for awhile.

“I wasn’t actually in love but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald / The Great Gatsby

Which leads me to the silliest phrase we say: “I knew I shouldn’t have done it.”

Saying that is silly. Its silly because adapting to another human being may be one of the most human things we can do. In fact. Its not silly at all. The reality is we meet a lot of temporary people in our lives. Some we love and some we are just curious about. Some change us for the better and some show us we were right about who we are. We should always entertain “the temporary.” Who knows? Maybe temporary becomes a positive permanent.

Which leads me to forgetting for a little while.

Speaking of temporary, forgetting for a little while is just a temporary situation. Being oneself is like a kaleidoscope of swirling colors. At any given point one color can look just a bit more appealing than the others and you, well, chase that color – for a little while. Because forgetting and chasing go hand in hand – and they both have an intimate relationship with temporary. One cannot forget forever nor can anyone chase forever. The forgetting and chasing may go on longer than is comfortable, but in the grand scheme of things it is, well, temporary.

Anyway.

We customize our lives – 30000 daily decisions at a time. In fact, one of the most freeing thoughts you can have is to realize you customize your life by making decisions in situations; as they happen to you. It may feel like you have just forgotten who you are for a little while, but you don’t really. Ponder.