Surprises

The other day, I was going through my things looking for something when I happened upon an old plastic box. It was something I recognized. I knew that inside it would be the small index cards that I had been looking for in the first place. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found that the index cards were right inside. Technically that wasn’t the surprising part.

What was surprising was that all the index cards were filled with information that I didn’t even know I’d bothered to take down. In my semi-neat handwriting were written down the titles of all my books and VHS tapes. I even included the authors or actors, genres and on others indicated the year that it was published. It was alphabetized and color-coded. I must have done it almost ten or fifteen years before but I’d completely forgotten about it. Everyone who knows me knows that I am not the world’s most organized person. But apparently, I am more organized than I thought and I have proof. 

I am always amazed when I surprise myself. I always think I’m so in touch with the person within, that I have such a good grasp of who I am that when I do things out of character, I find it completely refreshing. Of course, technically, nothing I do could ever be out of character because there is no other character but this self that keeps on surprising me. It’s funny though how, sometimes, I’m so conditioned not to judge others or to put them in boxes that I often forget to put the same standards on myself. I mean, sure, I can allow others to change or become someone else but I am not always so kind to myself. I label myself and before I know it, I’m a victim of my own stereotyping. 

But every once in while an incident like this happens and I am once again unfamiliar with myself. And it can be very liberating to find that I’m not exactly who I thought I was. Because if I were no longer capable of surprising myself then it would mean that I would be incapable of change, incapable of growth.

Some lessons are more difficult to learn than others, though. It’s not always a good day when I learn something new about myself. Sometimes, I come face to face with an ugly reality that I thought I’d repressed. Most of the time, it’ll take someone who truly loves me to point out what I need to change. Other times, it’s a rude awakening I get from an extreme circumstance. Either way, it’s not exactly my favorite part of growing up.

But if I don’t deal with it, the alternative is not exactly appealing either. It’s to live a life of doing the same thing over and over again, of being the same person all throughout, of not allowing life to change me in any way. And, that’s just a waste of time. Not to mention a waste of a life.