A More Genuine Me

Not that I am some great sage or anything, but a little over a year ago I started telling people that I thought getting back into society after our COVID separation period would be more difficult than the withdrawal. Given both what I feel within and see around me, I can say that I believe that is absolutely the case.

I based this prophecy on previous personal experience I have had withdrawing from the society with which I am accustomed. The first time I went on a volunteer trip to a small Ukrainian village in 1997, I was removed from my usual world of 8 to 5, on a good day; clear communication in a language I understood; people with whom I was supposed to relate well; societal expectations for behavior, interactions, and values; and conveniences like running water and indoor toilets, but that’s another story. It took a day or so, but integrating was easy because expectations were low both from within and from those around me.

Two weeks later and I am driving to work in an existential stupor. The rush out the door, the 20-minute commute, the necessities of professionalism, my mind running through all there was to do that week, and the mound of work likely waiting for me was overwhelming. I was back in my world of a myriad of expectations for me, both real and imagined, self-imposed and dictated.

I realized today why I had that epiphany about a post-COVID shutdown of personal crisis. In the shutdown, much like in Ukraine, I had spent weeks as a deconstructed, more genuine me. Expectations of me from others were few. Any expectations there were from others that I did not meet were quickly forgiven out of a common understanding that we were all doing the best we could.

I enjoyed more freedom with my authentic behaviors, interactions, and idiosyncrasies. I could speak openly within the confines of my home and express a full range of emotion. (Apologies to my wife.) I could live by the rules, values, and expectations with which I am most comfortable. No lie, it hit me on the playground with my son one day that I had on Vans shoes, hole-ridden and paint splotched jeans, a faded Harley-Davidson t-shirt, and my alma mater UNC hat. I was unwittingly revealing who I am for all to see.

During the time living outside of society’s expectations, I was more genuinely me. Back in society, I must admit, I am not as much me. There are expectations to meet, like it or not, willing or not. Rightly so, my personal comforts and desires are tempered by the world around me. I must meet expectations in order to live with those with which I interact on a daily basis in the wider world. I must put some of me aside. And I miss that.

Having come to this realization, I must figure out how to be the more authentic me while meeting realistic expectations. Who I am with others must include who I am within me. Otherwise, that time of COVID shutdown authenticity will be for naught.

Get ready for a more genuine me.