Follow Your Heart

I've watched the kids and their friends
play pretend when they were little,
and play with their toys,
and try on different lives.

And I've watched a few of them,
going through middle school very earnestly,
and others going through middle school very dramatically
trying on different styles and opinions
and sometimes settling on some rather silly ideas
and saying,
"this is who I am."

This is who you are since when?

And now they are in High School,
and this seems to be who they really are.
But it is at least partly a choice.
They have chosen to be this way
and they can choose to try to be different,
although they may have to work hard at it.
Those choices tend to solidify
and trap you in the place
you have chosen to occupy.

And I am getting old,
and I have told myself, and everyone else,
"This is who I am."
I'm rather set in my ways.
I didn't feel that way as a child.
I felt like everything was still a possibility,
and I could create myself new in every new relationship
and in every new day.

But just yesterday
As I approach yet another birthday
I found a crack in who I've become
and I've decided that now might be a good time
to try on a whole new possibility
and to say to myself,
"I can be this person, too."