Living the Question

On noticing who I’m becoming.

Photo by Gabriele Stravinskaite on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve been catching myself in the mirror and noticing how the reflection has shifted. Nothing dramatic, but in that slow, undeniable way time works. My face has aged. There are the beginnings of wrinkles now. It’s a little fuller too, those stubborn extra fifteen pounds that seem committed to staying. My freckles are more pronounced. The sun spots are new, a term I now understand in a way I didn’t before.

It’s kind of strange to watch your body change while still feeling, in many ways, like the same person inside. But as my reflection shifts, I can’t help but wonder if something else is shifting too, and not in some monumental way. Our personalities tend to stay fairly stable over a lifetime, but in the quieter, harder-to-name ways. The way I understand myself. The way I move through the world. The way I relate to the people around me.

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I’m coming to the conclusion that I don’t think we ever fully arrive at who we are.

We tell ourselves stories about our personalities, our identities, our limits. We decide we are introverted or internal or reserved, and those words become shorthand for something more complicated. And sometimes they’re true, just maybe not in the way we think.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to notice the difference between how I experience myself internally and how I actually move through the world. I am reflective, yes. I need quiet and space and time alone. But I am also good with people. I can be warm. Engaging. Even charismatic when I allow myself to be. That’s not something I would have named before, and maybe I couldn’t see it because I was too busy managing how I was being perceived.

That doesn’t mean I’m seamless or effortless. Goodness, no! I can be clumsy and awkward. I ask too many questions. I sometimes say the wrong thing or sit in silence too long for a lot of people. Which version of me shows up depends on context, energy, safety, and timing. But maybe that variability isn’t a flaw in the way I once thought it was. It’s not something to overcome or change, to improve. Maybe it’s just range. Or maybe I’ve had a few internal software updates that I haven’t fully integrated yet.

And the fear of how I’m perceived hasn’t disappeared. It still rides shotgun. It still whispers about being too much, too opinionated, too visible. It still nudges me toward being pleasant, agreeable, and acceptable. But it doesn’t get to drive anymore. I took the keys… suck it, fear!

I’m learning that when I let myself show up more honestly, I don’t become louder or harsher. I actually become quieter inside. The need to over-explain, over-perform, or over-correct fades. And I don’t have to hide as much or shield myself from the people around me.

So all of this to day, maybe wisdom isn’t knowing exactly who you are. Maybe it’s learning how to recognize yourself as you change —in the mirror, in conversation, in the moments where you choose presence over performance. And maybe it’s staying when the picture shifts, instead of rushing to define it or change it.

And I am noticing that when we’re honest, meaning when we’re more true to ourselves, most of the time people meet us there. Not always. We will never be everyone’s cup of tea. But we can learn to be our own. And that might be enough for this one life we’re given.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke

So I’m not entirely sure what the point of this piece is, exactly. Not in the tidy, declarative way we like our insights to arrive. I’ve said before that I’m a bit of a wanderer in my writing. Well, here it is. (Wink.)

But this is something I’ve been noticing. And I think maybe noticing is often the beginning of understanding. So naming a shift, even without fully grasping it, still matters, right?

I’ve also been wondering how much of this is simply aging. The accumulation of experience or the slow settling that comes from having lived long enough to see patterns, including your own. Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about wisdom. It’s not certainty, but a greater tolerance for complexity. And it’s not specific answers, but an ability to stay present with what hasn’t resolved yet. But even if this is universal, it still feels worth naming as it unfolds.

Rilke wrote, “Try to learn to love the questions themselves… Live the questions now.” And maybe that’s what this is. Living the questions. Allowing them to exist without forcing an answer or demanding a change.

Humans tend to experience these things in parallel. The quiet recalibrations. The moment when the reflection feels unfamiliar and more honest at the same time. The sense that who we thought we were no longer fits quite right, not because we were wrong, but because we’re still becoming. And becoming is a lifelong process.

Maybe you’ve felt this too. And maybe that’s reason enough to write about it.

Until next time…

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I’m Jenn — Ordinary Therapist is where I explore the layered, often messy work of being human — things like emotional maturity, relationships, burnout, and healing — through story, reflection, and a creative lens.

If you appreciate thoughtful takes, personal insight, and the kind of honesty that makes room for both complexity and connection, you’re in the right place.

Come back, read a little, comment, subscribe, like — or just hang out. I’m just glad you’re here.

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