For a long time, I thought there was probably some point in life when you figured out who you were. You picked a direction, built a life, became successful, and eventually, I guess, you arrived.

I’m 50 years old now, and I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.

I’m still figuring out who I am. In fact, I think I’m asking that question more now than I ever did when I was younger. The difference is that I’m finally starting to understand that maybe I’m not supposed to arrive at one permanent answer. Maybe I’m supposed to keep becoming.

I’ve been a lot of things

I’ve been a wife, a mother, a stepmother, a friend. I’ve had jobs, careers, dreams, and ambitions that have taken me in completely different directions.

When I was younger, I had an idea of what success was supposed to look like. There were certain things I thought I should learn and certain paths I thought I should follow if I wanted to fit into that picture. Then I had children young, and life changed. For a long time, there wasn’t much room for philosophical questions about purpose or identity. I did what I needed to do to survive and take care of my kids.

I went to college to become an architectural designer. I didn’t finish because life got in the way. In my 40s, I tried again in a different direction with graphic design. I loved it. I was good at it. Eventually, though, something changed. Maybe I outgrew it. Maybe I got bored. Maybe some part of me knew before I consciously did that it wasn’t really where I was supposed to stay.

I don’t look at those things as wasted time anymore. I think all those different interests, jobs, experiences, successes, failures, and versions of myself gave me insight I wouldn’t have otherwise. Maybe I needed all of them to get here.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed what actually mattered to me

I have always been the person people come to with their shit, which is kind of funny because I’m also brash, sarcastic, opinionated, and equipped with a pretty weird sense of humor. I don’t have much of a filter. People sometimes decide they don’t like me before they actually know me.

The people who do know me know the other side. I have a big heart. I’m fiercely loyal. If I have something someone needs, I’ll give it without expecting anything in return. I’m a problem solver. I have a comfortable shoulder to cry on. And I will probably tell you what I think you need to hear instead of what you want to hear.

For most of my life, though, my instinct when someone brought me a problem was to fix it. Tell me what’s happening and I’ll tell you what I think you should do. If I have a resource that can help, I’ll find it. If I know someone who can help, I’ll make the call. If you need someone to stand up for you, I’m probably already halfway there before you’ve finished explaining the situation.

I felt responsible for helping people get their shit together. There’s something rewarding about being the person people trust when things are falling apart, but there’s also something exhausting about believing you’re responsible for putting everything back together.

Then somebody said something that stuck

At one point, I was bartending. The owner of the bar was an alcoholic. The head cook was dealing with his own demons. I had another friend who was going through some things, and the list went on. I found myself being everything to everybody.

Being raised by a recovering alcoholic probably played some part in the way I navigated those situations. Complicated people and complicated circumstances weren’t exactly unfamiliar territory to me. I knew how to step in, listen, problem-solve, and try to make things better.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, probably as a joke, someone said, “You should be a life coach.”

Hmmm.

I started saying it out loud to people I trusted. I think I want to be a life coach. And something interesting happened. Nobody laughed. Nobody looked confused. Nobody said, Really? You? Most of the people closest to me responded with excitement and validation.

That mattered more than I realized at the time. I had spent years wondering what my path was supposed to be, and suddenly the people who knew me best were recognizing something in me that I was only beginning to recognize in myself.

Sometimes somebody else sees a piece of you before you’re ready to see it yourself.

Learning to help changed the way I help

Getting my life coaching certification didn’t suddenly turn me into someone who cares about helping people. I already did. What it began teaching me was that helping someone doesn’t necessarily mean telling them what to do.

That has been a pretty significant shift for someone whose natural response to a problem is, Okay, here’s what I think you should do.

I’ve always asked questions, but now I’m learning the importance of asking better ones. Instead of immediately jumping to the solution I can see, I’m learning how to help someone explore what they see. What do they actually want? What matters to them? What have they already considered? What are they assuming? What might they see differently if they looked at the situation from another angle?

There’s a difference between helping someone and carrying them. There’s a difference between offering perspective and taking responsibility for someone else’s choices. And there’s a big difference between giving someone your answer and helping them find their own.

Apparently becoming a life coach has also involved learning that I don’t need to life coach every person I encounter.

Who knew?

Growth has an uncomfortable side

Learning all of this has also caused me to look backward. There are things I understand now about communication, questions, and how people receive what we say that I wish I had understood when I was younger, especially when I was raising my kids.

There are moments when I think, If I only knew then what I know now. I think regret probably comes with growth sometimes. You learn something that makes you better today, but that same knowledge gives you a clearer view of things you wish you had done differently yesterday.

I don’t get to go backward, though. None of us do. So I’m learning to ask myself a different question:

What do you do with the things you know now that you wish you had known then?

I can regret things. I can learn from them. I can apologize when I need to. But mostly, I can decide what I’m going to do with what I know now. I can communicate differently. I can listen differently. I can show up differently for the people I love.

Maybe part of becoming is accepting that you couldn’t always be the person you are now, because you didn’t know what you know now.

I think I’m learning to take up more room in my own life

For most of my adult life, outside things have influenced who I am and how I live. Motherhood is an obvious one. Once you become a parent, it can become so much of your identity that you lose track of the person underneath it. I envy people who somehow manage to become parents while still holding tightly to themselves. I don’t think I always knew how to do that.

Relationships influenced me too. So did responsibilities, work, expectations, and the opinions of people around me. Even now, I have a husband who is supportive and absolutely my rock, but I’m realizing how much someone else’s reaction can influence me even when they aren’t actually asking me to change.

Sometimes I want to have a conversation about something spiritual or metaphysical without wondering whether the person listening thinks it’s ridiculous. Sometimes I want to work out without being self-conscious about how I look doing it or wondering whether someone is looking at me and thinking, ew. These aren’t enormous restrictions being placed on me by someone else. A lot of the time, they’re restrictions I place on myself because I’m anticipating judgment.

Nobody has to actually tell me I shouldn’t do something. Sometimes the possibility of being judged is enough for me to edit myself before anyone else gets the chance.

I’m starting to question that.

How many things have I avoided, softened, hidden, or changed because I was worried about somebody else’s reaction rather than because they weren’t right for me?

Becoming more myself doesn’t mean I suddenly stop caring what the people I love think. I don’t want that. My choices affect other people, and relationships require consideration. But I’m starting to understand that there has to be room between considering someone else and allowing their possible judgment to determine who I get to be.

I’m learning where that line is.

Who am I without everybody else’s expectations?

When I really think about who I am without the roles, expectations, responsibilities, and opinions attached to me, the answer is surprisingly simple.

I am me.

I’m spiritual and open-minded. I’m helpful, caring, loving, forgiving, and welcoming. I want to be healthy. I want to be free to have the experiences I desire. I’m a free spirit.

And maybe that means becoming isn’t always about adding something new to yourself. Maybe sometimes it’s about peeling away enough of everyone else’s expectations to recognize what was already there.

How much of becoming yourself is actually unlearning who you thought you had to be?

I’m still figuring that one out.

I’m starting anyway

Cairn & Sage is part of that. So is starting a podcast with my friend Jackie. Both require me to put myself out there in ways that are a little uncomfortable. They require me to share my ideas, have opinions, talk about things that matter to me, cuss sometimes, laugh, question things, and allow myself to be seen without polishing every rough edge first.

The important part is that I’m not waiting until I have everything figured out before I start.

Thank God, because apparently we’d be waiting a while.

I’m learning. I’m studying. I’m questioning things. I’m changing my mind about some things and becoming more certain about others. I’m recognizing patterns in myself that I want to change and parts of myself that I want to protect.

I’m a work in progress. I think we all are.

What I hope all of this becomes

When I’m 70 or 80, I don’t think I need to look back and see some huge list of accomplishments. More than anything, I want to feel content.

I want to know that I helped people. I want my husband to understand and respect what I’m trying to build now. I want my kids to recognize that the woman I am today has learned from the mother I was when I was raising them. I want to be able to nurture them, their children, and maybe someday their grandchildren with more openness, honesty, and wisdom than I had when I was younger.

I want my friends to still see the person they know now, but maybe with even more trust, love, and understanding. I want the people who love me to know me fully enough that there isn’t much left to explain. This is Kat. This is who she is.

Not because I finally became some finished version of myself, but because I stopped hiding so much of her.

What I’d tell her now

If I could sit across from 30-year-old me today, I wouldn’t hand her a blueprint for the next 20 years. I wouldn’t tell her exactly which decisions to make or which mistakes to avoid, even though I’d probably be tempted.

I’d tell her that this is not permanent. The things that feel like they’re going to define the rest of her life won’t. Life will change. She will change. Great things are coming, including things she can’t possibly see from where she’s sitting.

I’d tell her to stay true to who she is. Don’t bend or mask who you are or who you want to be just to fit into somebody else’s expectations. Don’t be afraid to make moves. Have faith in what is meant to be.

And maybe I’d tell her not to worry so much about figuring out exactly who she’s supposed to become.

Twenty years later, she still won’t have that answer.

But she’ll finally understand that maybe she was never supposed to.