My identity is an ongoing process, and that’s okay

Who am I? I think this is a question we don’t ask ourselves often enough. We wonder about it all the time, but we don’t often dig deep into our souls, and we don’t often flirt with the idea of knowing who we really are naked.

I mean, as we grow into young adults, even teenagers, we form what we believe are our values and priorities in life. Our opinions on how to live life and the attitude in life we like to carry ourselves with. We find ourselves changing as we grow older. Our opinions change, our outlook on life changes, our values and priorities change. What even defines us as a person? Our past? Our choices on a daily basis? Our judgments? Our actions and behaviors in general? Or is it our ethnicity? The color of our skin?

Who are we? Are we the relationships we form in life? The jobs we work at? The clothes we wear? Who are we naked? Who am I?

To be quite honest with you I think that finding out your true identity could take a lifetime to explore. If someone would ask you tomorrow who you are, you can tell them everything as far as your name, your age, your ethnicity, where you work, what your hobbies are, your style, do you have siblings? However, those things aren’t who we are naked. Those things can shift and change at any point so they don’t define us. A person’s behavior is not the person, behavior can just change who we are.

That being said, I started this journey not long ago. I think I was interested in getting to know the real me after breaking up with one of my exes who I lived with for 3 years. The reason that was my time to get to know me is that I had changed drastically in that relationship, and I had lost the true connection to myself. I reached a point where I was looking in the mirror and saw a blank canvas. Who was this 24-year-old girl looking back at me? I am 26 today turning 27 in August and here’s what I have to say.

If you’d ask me today who I am I'm still not able to fully tell you. I believe that identity is an ongoing process. It’s a flowing sense of self. I think that it’s fair to say that I would rather find out what I want to experience in life. As human beings we constantly re-consider things, we re-organize our lives, we re-think ourselves. Therefore I can identify myself as “ This person” today but can feel completely different if I travel the world and you were to ask me the same question in a year, my answer would probably not be the same.

Are you still here with me?

I think that who we are is what we want to experience in life. I can give you a 5-page explanation about my character and how I carry myself as a person and my behavior and attitudes I apply to life, but that doesn’t mean that’s who I am to the core. I can tell you that I am fully and completely in touch with my feelings. I am hypersensitive to my demons and angels inside my head. I can tell you that every day I learn more about myself. I can tell you that I want to discover new things about myself forever. Why should it end today? Why should I have to know today who I am to the core?

What if it’s okay that we don’t fully know who we are? What if trying to explain who we are to the core puts pressure on us and blocks us from allowing ourselves to flow within this ongoing process?

I am Alicia Almarales and I am far from done getting to know me.