In My Mid-Life Renaissance Era

tl;dr: in celebration of turning another year older, I look back on my life and ask myself, "who was I when I wasn't wondering who I was?"

Chapter One: The Headband

For one of my daughter’s birthdays, we took her to a Claire’s-esque store full of accessories. It was her golden birthday (turning seven on the seventh), and she wanted to get a gold-colored headband. As I walked down the aisle full of headband selections, I took one from a hook on the wall and placed it on my head. I looked at the mirror and it was almost as if Alicia from 1996 appeared out of nowhere and gave me a nod of approval.

When I turned from my reflection in the mirror, I found my birthday girl looking at me with her bright, smiling eyes and her new headband adorning her head.

“Do you like it, Mommy,” she asked while hugging my waist.

“I love it,” I exclaimed.

I returned the headband I was holding back to its hook on the wall and lingered for a moment, contemplating whether or not I was still a headband person, or just romanticizing the days of my youth.

I made my way to check out.

“Will this be all,” the cashier asked.

I looked down at my daughter’s golden headband on the counter. “Yes, that’s all.” I glanced over my shoulder, once more, at the headband on the hook before leaving the store.

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Chapter Two: Borrowed Identity

About seven months after my husband and I got married, we took a trip to Indonesia. We were helping some of his former co-workers with a summer job, while also trying to determine if there was any chance of full-time work for us in Indonesia (spoiler alert: there was, and we moved to Indonesia a year later).

But let's start at the beginning of that summer, when our plane touched down and we walked into a hot, sticky airport.

No, sorry, rewind a little further back to us being stuck in the Houston airport for two nights in a row because of trouble with our flights. We were stranded, our luggage was long gone, and we were beginning to stink from all the stress-sweating. We paid about fifty bucks for a taxi to take us from the airport to the nearest mall (which just so happened to be the same mall I spent all my pre-teen years trying to be way cooler than I actually was). We had twenty minutes to buy ourselves a new outfit on Delta's dime before the mall closed. And thanks to having lived in the Houston area for my elementary and teen years, I was able to call up a mom of one of my childhood friends (and she just so happened to work at the airport).

Now, back to the hot, sticky airport in Indonesia.

We had arrived, our bags had not.

We weren't completely shocked by this, considering how our itinerary ended up looking NOTHING like it was supposed to—but we were still bummed. Our friends loaned us some clothes to wear for the first week while we waited for our suitcases to slowly catch up with us.

The borrowed clothes did their job—that is, they covered my body. However, the clothes weren't what I would have typically worn and they didn't fit comfortably. I wore them because it was what I needed for the moment. But as soon as my luggage arrived, I switched back to my own clothes—except for the one pair of pants I grew fond of and asked my friend if I could keep wearing for the remainder of our trip.

Whenever I reflect back to my first years as an expat, I think back to that summer of wearing borrowed clothes. Just like our delayed luggage, I felt like my pre-expat self didn't arrive with me. For weeks, which turned into months, which turned into at least a couple of years, I didn't know how to be me. It felt like that nightmare of showing up somewhere not fully clothed. I had been stripped bare of all I knew, so I had to borrow the expat identity of others.

I asked questions…
Where do you shop for groceries?

How do you handle this situation?

What do you normally pay for something like this?

Where do you plug into the community?

What do you do to practice the language?

I knew nothing and depended heavily on those who had been around for longer than me. I borrowed all the ideas and recommendations, even if they weren't a good fit for me. And since I needed to do this for quite some time, I didn't feel like myself. I wanted to make others laugh, but I didn't have the language to do so. I wanted to feel independent, but I didn't know how to drive yet. I wanted to find where I fit in, but I often had to be a tagalong, third wheel. I lived the beginning of my expat life metaphorically shuffling around in a baggy shirt, high-water pants, and shoes a size too big.

The borrowed identity I had in Indonesia did its job—that is, it helped me put one foot in front of the other when culture shock and fatigue were wearing me down. It was what I needed for a time. However, little by little, the self I was more familiar with started to show up.

I returned some ways of expat living back to the original owner, and wore the stuff I felt was more tailored to me. But just like my friend’s pants, there were a few things previously borrowed which I incorporated as part of my new expat life wardrobe. I learned to be me again, but in a new place.

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Chapter Three: Back to the Headband

I was spending a stupid amount of time thinking about the headband I didn’t purchase, and an even stupider amount of time wondering if I was “a hEaDbAnd pErSoN.”

My last recollection of wearing headbands unlocked memories of eating rectangular pizza and a spoonful of canned corn for lunch on Fridays, sipping Chucklin’ Cherry SqueezeIts with the cap that resembled a lobster, making origami fortune tellers, playing M.A.S.H. with my friends to see how bright my future looked, and trying desperately, time and time again, to keep my GigaPet dog alive.

What was I so scared about? Why was I overanalyzing a style choice? I clearly loved the headband. I’m also the grown-up I could not wait to be when I was a kid and I could purchase these sort of things whenever I wanted to.

Get the headband, I told myself.
You want the headband.

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Chapter Four: Somebody That I Used to Know

On July 6, 2011, the Australian singer songwriter, Goyte, released a single that catapulted him into all the top charts. He received platinum status in both Australia and the U.S. and peaked at #1 in 50 countries. The accompanying music video currently has nearly 2.5 billion views.

But not long after releasing this hit single, Goyte was nowhere to be found (at least not in the limelight).

While the song elevated his music career to undeniable levels, it never phased his creative ambitions as a true artist and songwriter. Instead, he diverted his attention to other projects and art forms.

"I decided it made more sense to focus on creative things and not get hung up on money and lawyers and courts," he stated in a 2017 interview.

While listening to his chart-topping song, “Somebody That I Used to Know,” these lyrics cut me straight to the core:

Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness

I don’t know what Goyte’s original inspiration was when he wrote the words to this song, but the lyrics made me think of the stranger I had become to myself.

As I type this, I’m currently sitting at my dining room table in our “new” home built in 1984, enjoying the first few days of summer break. I’m no longer in Indonesia and I’m no longer an expat. I’m no longer speaking a foreign language on a regular basis and I’m back to asking questions.

Where do your kids do gymnastics?

What do you do for playdates?

How do you write your lesson plans? (Also, what are PSTs and Student Focus Meetings and Math Matrixes and Esti Mysteries and UFLI and Recipe for Reading and…?)

What boundaries do you put in place for work?

How do you do dinner around all the extracurriculars?

In addition to the “I’m new here” identity, I find myself having miniature identity crises (maybe we can call the small ones “identity setbacks”) whenever I’m on Instagram.

Suddenly, I want to be a poet,
and a plant person.
I want to renovate furniture from FB Marketplace,
and start dabbling with film photography.
I want to go to a pilates class,
and then meditate on the words the instructor said and turn it into a sermon.
Should I post about my favorite products and outfits?
Should I get a LTK account?
Do I need a book reading goal?

The trouble is, I don’t do enough of any one of those things to claim it as my identity. If you were to click on my Instagram account, you wouldn’t see “Alicia with all the classroom hacks” or “Alicia’s OOTDs.” You wouldn’t see multiple reels showcasing how I thrifted and styled things, nor would you see a feed full of stunning photos.

WHO AM I?? Or rather…
Who was I when I wasn’t so worried about who I was?

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Chapter Five: The Scavenger Hunt

For so long, when I thought back on the days of my youth, I assumed I was trying to be like anyone but myself.

Now I realize I was pulling pieces of inspiration and patching it together in my own way. I borrowed all the ideas and recommendations, even if they weren't a good fit for me. I kept borrowing until I found what I liked.

So, who was I when I wasn’t wondering who I was?

I’ve always seen things take shape out of the ordinary.
My mom told me I always saw things—not in the creepy, sixth-sense way, but in the way you’d see a cloud take the shape of something. Once, when she was tucking me in, I said, “there’s a W.” She followed the direction of my pointed finger and saw the door to my bedroom. After some further questioning, she realized I saw the shape of a W in the grain of the wood. Now, something so basic as ant carrying a crumb twice its size is going to weave its way into my writing.

I’ve always collected inspiration from people and places around me.
Before the days of Pinterest or screenshots or save buttons, I was making my mental boards of inspiration. I pulled things from magazines, TV shows, and what I saw in the hallways of school. I even workshopped my handwriting a few times when I liked the way one girl wrote her “a” or another girl dotted her “i.” I didn’t ever feel like I was going through an identity crisis in these moments. It was like an identity scavenger hunt— each new discovery felt like a puzzle piece snapping into place.

I’ve always loved to teach.
Teachers were my heroes. I longed for the day I would have my own classroom and overhead projector. I assembled my stuffed animals on the carpet of my bedroom, instructing them via a small whiteboard hung on my wall. Oh, and let’s not forget the grade book I made for myself.

I used to be better about making time for fun.
I rode my bike or rollerbladed all over the neighborhood. I entered imaginative worlds with my friends. If I wasn’t enjoying something, I didn’t keep doing it. Recently, an ad popped up on Netflix with the song “Are You Having Any Fun?” accompanying it.

Are you having any fun?
Are you getting any laughs?
Who cares for what you’ve got if you’re not having any fun?

The lyrics bounced around in my head long after the ad ended.

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Chapter Six: Mid-Life Renaissance

At one point in her conversation with Dax Shephard on his podcast, Armchair Expert, Amy Poehler started talking about learning a new skill.

“I was just saying to a friend of mine the other day, there should be another term besides mid-life crisis. Everyone likes to say, ‘she he's having a midlife crisis.’ I'd love to rebrand some version of that where you started having a midlife discovery or breakthrough. Renaissance.”

ren·ais·sance
/ˈrenəˌsäns/
noun
a revival of or renewed interest in something

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Chapter Seven: I Got the Headband

I took a special trip back to the store to buy the headband I couldn’t stop thinking about. I am a headband person.

I slowly drifted away from Instagram and didn’t share any posts for a year. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I was in a constant state of overstimulation and “addicted to a certain kind of sadness” and loneliness.

One drizzly morning, I sat down across the table from three principals and an HR representative for a job interview for the first time in 13 years. A few hours later, my phone rang and I was offered a second grade teaching position at a school five minutes away from our house.

“It’s a terrible time to be a public school teacher,” I heard a woman next to me say to her hairstylist. She had just left the profession, and I was a month away from going back to it. As my stylist continued to trim my hair, I sat in silence, wondering if I was absolutely crazy to go back to teaching nearly midway through my life.

During a game of How Well Do You Know Your Teacher, I asked my second graders about which subject is my favorite to teach. They scribbled on their whiteboards and held them high in the air. “Writing,” they all unanimously agreed. Cue my writer heart melting into a puddle on the ground.

“You’re living out your calling,” a mother wrote in a thank you card at the end of the school year.

I’ve spent the past few years worrying about who I am—but now, I feel like I have a renewed interest in the person I used to know.

And that, my friends, is mid-life renaissance.

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Pages from My Meme-oir:
(the section where I share a little more about myself via memes)