My girls,
The below essay has fewer answers and more questions than most of what I aim to publish here. I am turning 33 soon and for the very first time, I feel like I am getting a little older. Below, some existential questions. If nothing else, it’s honest. I love you and I mean it.
Forever young,
Hannah Stella
…
A few weeks ago, I was in my apartment having a drink with a friend who has known me for most of my life. We were talking about a dinner party I’d hosted while I was married. That party was the first time I’d seen this friend in a long while. While we were talking about the dinner party in my old house, they said to me, “After we left, my partner said we should hang out with you all again, that you’re good couple friends for us. But I demurred, I felt like that wasn’t my friend I just had dinner with. You’ve been the same person since we were children but you weren’t for a while.”
Others have echoed the same sentiment to me over the past few years and on the whole, I find it affirming. I am now who I have always been. When I was married, I was unintentionally role playing, acting as the woman I wanted desperately to be—but was not. Authenticity is invaluable, is it not? And if I am being authentic now then I am on the correct path. I am making the correct choices. Am I being authentic? Or am I allowing myself to revert to old patterns, to use self-awareness as a stand in for growth?
