Changeling

I have been thinking lately about how much I have changed over the years. I mean, in a lot of ways, I'm not even remotely the same person I used to be. My attitudes, values, desires, interests have all changed pretty drastically over the years. I guess that's pretty much expected; we learn, we grow, we change, but in some ways I think I've changed much more than is to be expected.

You know the other day how excited I was that I was finally able to do a pull-up (I'm up to three now, by the way. WOO!)? Well that got me thinking about how much harder I'm willing to work for things now than I used to be. Not even necessarily important things either; things, like pull-ups, that I want to do just so I can say that I can do them. I have never liked feeling like there were things I couldn't do, but I used to just try to avoid situations where I would be required to try to do things I couldn't do.

For example, my whole way through school I hated gym class with a fiery passion. I could never do anything that they tried to make us do, and it always made me feel totally incompetent. Instead of trying to get better at those things though, I would just try to hang back and avoid doing them at all. I think perhaps the best example of how much this has changed for me is running. You know how in school they would do those fitness tests where you had to "run" a mile? Well, I have always sucked at running. So when we had to run the mile I would pretty much just walk the entire time and be one of the last people to finish, every year. It was hard, and I wasn't good at it, so I just didn't bother trying to do it. In contrast, when I had to do the physical test for that police job (how productive that whole mess turned out to be) I damn near killed myself just to keep up with some random guy who was running next to me. It wasn't like I was going to fail the test if I didn't keep up with him, I was still well ahead of several people. I just couldn't stand to let him get ahead of me.

I tend to do that with everything these days. I can't stand feeling like someone else can do something that I can't. I'm not sure what exactly brought on this change, but I have gone from just wanting to avoid looking pathetic to needing to be capable at all times.

Yeah, this actually had nothing to do with changelings. Sorry.