Postcard 054 - The Things We Carry With Us
Almost every time I cut an apple, I think of someone I used to date.
It’s not that she particularly liked apples, but she taught me a way to cut apples that has stayed with me.
When I was cutting an apple earlier today, I thought of her and then I wondered what else I carry with me from the people that I’ve met.
I think for many of us, it’s easy to point at things that we’ve taken from our parents. Facial expressions. Nonverbals.
And as we get older, we pull from our friends, colleagues, and partners. We are the sum of the people who we’ve let change us.
Part of me wonders if, over time, we lose sight of those anchor points. Of the people or moments in our life where we learned these new things or picked up these new parts of us.
Do they, at some point, simply become ours? In a year or five or ten, will this simply be the way that I cut apples rather than the way that I learned to cut apples from my ex?
I think these questions are particularly alive for me as I got my first tattoos over the last two weeks. I am now carrying some new things with me. And unlike the way I cut apples, these are quite externally-visible things.
I imagine the answer will vary.
There are some things I carry with me that I hope I can always trace back to the source. Other things I’m happy to forget, or at least not dwell on. I can wave to that memory as it passes by.
A smart friend recently shared a Dolly Parton quote that I loved — “find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
I’m grateful that who I am is very much a product of the people in my life, and, on balance, I feel lucky for the things I carry with me.