Is anyone ever really themselves anymore?

I got to thinking about this the other day after a conversation with some friends.

Mate: So how was your night, did you have fun?

PPQ: Oh definitely, it was a great night and everyone was funny and lovely, but I didn’t really feel like I was on top form, that maybe I didn’t give the real me

The real me?
Hang on, let’s back up there a second.
If that wasn’t me in there that night, who was it? And were they a better me, or a worse me?

Insecurities aside, I can tell you now that there was a dark period in my life when I really didn’t know who I was. It was a rough time where I teetered on the edge of bi-polar tendencies and it was pot luck which side of my character you got. It didn't help that an ex-‘friend’ used to tell me over and over that really, it wasn’t my fault because I couldn’t help being born a two-faced Gemini.

It took me a while to realise that she needed to be shown the red card. And an even longer time to figure out that we human beings have perfected the art of being multi-faceted, that it often takes people a good deal of time before they’ll allow the ‘real me’ to emerge. But while I understand this can often be due to safety mechanisms, is there really a need for it, and wouldn’t it be quite nice if we didn’t feel the need to change ourselves from situation to situation, or when faced with different people?

Over the last few years I’ve made a concerted effort to try and be a little more, well, constant. It's less tiring but by no means has it been an easy task. For one thing I am a woman with a predilection for over-analysis, and for another, I am paranoid and too often insecure. But while I suffer the odd momentary lapse from time to time, generally these days you’ll tend to find that the PPQ who’s hanging out with her brothers and Bubs on a Sunday in Chinatown yumming up Dim Sum is pretty much the same as the PPQ who’s busting a groove on the dancefloor with her oldest mates, and that’s pretty much the same as the PPQ who’s bantering with her print buyers and printers when at work.

And I like to think that’s a good thing.

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