Being self-aware and a little unhinged is exhausting because you don’t get to pretend you don’t know better. You know exactly what you’re about to do. You’ve done it before. You can narrate the consequences while it’s happening, and you already know how it ends.
I know better. I just don’t always do better. That gap is where half my problems and all my best stories live.
A few years ago, I was on a health kick, disciplined and feeling good. Went to brunch, my friend ordered a mimosa, and I can literally hear my brain say ‘don’t’ as my hand says ‘cheers.’
My rationale? No good story ever started with egg whites. At least none of mine.
Do you know how hard it is to live with a central and peripheral nervous system that are never on the same page?
That disagreement is basically my relationship with self-awareness, which makes it really hard to know my limits.
Self-awareness doesn’t always make me do the right thing.
It’s more like a red flag I can see very clearly, because I’m the one waving it, and I still choose to ignore it while getting a front-row seat to the sequel of “You Know Better,” starring me… again.
I replay it like a highlight reel of all my worst moments, every clip a reminder of what I thought I’d outgrown. Nothing screams louder than the shame of disappointing myself. It lingers for days until something else takes its place and I feel normal again- like it never happened.
I think ignorance might actually be easier… the kind that exists before you start calculating consequences, before you learn how much everything costs.
And part of me envies that.
Back when I could do something questionable and just move on. No overthinking. No replay. No guilt or shame loitering all day, reminding me who I’m trying to be now.
Having a big epiphany feels great for about five minutes. You feel evolved, grown, like you’ve figured it out. Then a situation shows up and tests that version of you.
It’s a constant pull between who I’m trying to be now and the version of me who had no filter, no patience, and no problem losing it on a pharmacy tech after being asked to spell my last name for the fifth time.
I’ve made a lot of choices I’m not proud of. Learned from most. But then there are those moments where it’s like my inner child suddenly wakes up after years in a therapy-induced coma, craving attention. Positive or negative, she’ll take it all. Like it’s time to test how much I’ve actually grown since the last disaster. As if I’d forget how it ended.
Then I’m told the consequences from the last shitstorm couldn’t have been that bad, which is in-fucking-sane because they were. And yet here I am, revisiting them like I’ve learned nothing.
We talk about growth like it replaces who we were. It doesn’t.
I remember turning 29, thinking it was my last year to blame things on being young…like 30 would show up with self-control pre-installed. It didn’t. Same shit. Just better vocabulary to explain it.
When you’re young, you think adults are so mature... like they’ve outgrown all the drama and life just gets easier. You don’t get yelled at for leaving the kitchen light on, the door unlocked, or being late. No one leaves you out of plans, no worrying about who’s texting your ex, no gossip, no jealousy, no competition, no taking sides over dumb shit.
You assume adults just handle things better.
Then you’re 35, lying by the pool, watching a couple in their sixties argue like literal toddlers because one of them liked someone’s Facebook post.
So naturally, I paused my music to listen, and underneath the yelling I heard hurt, pride, insecurity, and fear.
It made me realize whatever lives at your core doesn’t disappear. It just gets quieter. More managed. More negotiated with. But it’s still there, waiting for a moment of hurt, exhaustion, or weak boundaries turning “managed” adults into toddlers mid-argument.
So, I’ve stopped pretending that part of me will just go away. And honestly, I don’t know that I’d want her to. I just try to manage her better… and accept that sometimes she’s still going to win.
Growth doesn’t mean you suddenly turn into some perfectly evolved version of yourself overnight. Sometimes it looks like knowing better and still choosing what’s familiar, because part of you still finds comfort in what you’re trying to outgrow.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.