I don’t take the term “friendship” lightly. I have a high bar and a long lead time before I call someone a friend. And it’s not because I’m difficult. It’s because I know what I need from a friendship and what I’m willing to give. I’ll tell you all about my standards in a bit, but first, I want to start with the kind of friend I don’t want to be (at least not anymore).

I’ve known some of my closest friends almost my entire life. I’m talking about meeting in elementary school and at birthday parties where five of us could jump on the bed without risking a concussion.

And when one of my close friends was in what I considered a shitty relationship, I was perhaps a bit too vocal about my disdain for her boyfriend. I would tell her she could do better, remind her of everything he wasn’t giving her, and encourage her to break up with him anytime they were in a rough spot. I took it so far that when I found what I knew would be her perfect breakup card (it had a little jewel of a cactus with a note that said, “He was a prick. I never liked him anyways.”), I bought it for her. FIVE YEARS before they actually broke up.

In the end, I wasn’t wrong about her boyfriend. But I was wrong for being such a bitch about it. The good news is that our friendship outlasted their relationship, but that wasn’t by chance. I knew I needed to change.

We used to talk all the time. And by that I mean we’d have three-hour phone calls where you don’t even bother to put the person on mute when you have to pee. But all of a sudden, we started drifting apart. We talked less and less, and I had no idea what was going on in her life, much less her relationship. I don’t recall the exact sequence of events, but at some point, we had a hard talk about how I was being too judgmental and she didn’t feel like she could open up to me without being criticized or told what to do.

That hurt. And she was absolutely right. I was doing and saying what I thought was best for her, but I never actually stopped to ask her what she needed.

So I changed. And our relationship changed. I told her I’d support her however she needed and stop offering my opinions on her boyfriend unless she asked. That didn’t mean I was completely silent. I was still vocal when I was genuinely concerned for her, but I stopped criticizing her choices, which meant that I stopped criticizing her. I was loving her in the way she needed to be loved.

And truthfully, it was uncomfortable at first. I had to consciously edit my reactions, which took practice and effort. But it became clear that my shift toward being less judgmental and more supportive was changing all of my relationships for the better, not just our friendship.

I honestly don’t think she ever asked for my opinion on her boyfriend after that. But she did open back up to me, and we’re still close friends today.

Alright, so what do I mean when I call you my friend?

I mean that I’m willing to give you everything that I need in my friendships: time, energy, attention, (very) deep conversations, compassion, understanding, and room for change.

Now, I’m willing to give much more than I get. And sometimes I’ll need more than I’m able to give. It’s not about things being 50/50. It’s about cultivating reciprocal relationships that give me what I consider the bare minimum. And of course, this is completely subjective. Your list may look different than mine.

What’s odd is that I’m not sure I’ve ever explicitly told my friends what I need from them. I’ve kinda just expected them to know. And while I’ve asked a couple of friends what friendship means to them and what they need from me, I’m not going to pretend that’s a normal part of our conversations.

Once upon a time, in February, I was getting out of what was an incredibly tumultuous relationship.

We’d been on and off for almost three years, and although our breakups weren’t always public, they were chaotic for the people around us. At the end of the relationship, I was convinced that everything was my fault: what wasn’t working, why it ended, how it ended. It was all my fault. And that’s the story I told to my friends.

Without getting into all of the details, I’ll just tell you that I couldn’t convince most of my friends that everything was my fault. I tried, multiple times. And I’m not saying that to absolve myself of responsibility. It takes two to tango, and it took both of us to break our relationship. I’m making the point that my close friends saw things I couldn’t see at the time. They weren’t in the mess, even if they’d had a front-row seat.

My best friends listened. They let me cry, process, and rehash the same story until I could hear it differently. They told me hard truths when I needed them, but never rushed me to “get over it.” They gave me everything I needed without me ever having to ask.

I’m not sure if that was a complete fluke or if it’s the exact reason why we’re friends. I’m also not sure how normal it is to communicate our needs overtly, or whether our relationships naturally form or fall apart based on whether those needs are being met.

That said, I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a high-maintenance lady. So if I’m not getting what I need, I tend to be pretty vocal about it.

For whatever reason, other friends weren’t able to meet my needs. And I don’t hold it against them. It was messy. Everyone cared, but to what degree and with what reservations, I’ll probably never know. I’m not sure I really want to know.

I genuinely believe they thought they were being good friends. But what got in the way was everything we left unsaid. They offered what they thought I needed, but never actually asked me what I needed.

To be clear, nobody is obliged to give me what I need in a friendship, especially if meeting my needs would conflict with theirs or cross their boundaries in any way.

The friends who held me up still had boundaries. I could cry, but I couldn’t ask them to watch me drown in my sorrow, much less to drown with me. I could tell them my opinion, but I couldn’t insist that they had to agree with how I saw things. I think a big part of what held us together was their honesty about what they could give and what they needed from me. They didn’t dismiss their feelings or needs just because mine were louder.

I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault that some friendships felt strained. That’s a very natural part of a breakup. But the friendships that held steady got a hell of a lot stronger. Hell, I got stronger! And the blunt truth is that the other friendships weren’t giving me what I needed to begin with. Maybe they weren’t getting what they needed from me either. The breakup didn’t end them. But it did change them.

I used to think there was only one type of friendship…

Hence my high bar and long initiation process before I call someone a friend. But the past few years have taught me that just because some friendships are more casual than others doesn’t mean they’re any less valuable.

Some friendships have the depth and emotional intimacy to carry us through our toughest breakups times. Others are built around shared interests, convenience, work relationships, mutual friends, or simply being in the same season of life.

Different friendships can open different parts of you. And if we’re being truthful, sometimes not all of you is welcome in every friendship. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

I’m the friend who thinks everyone looks more kissable after a cocktail or two. And those can be virgin cocktails. But I know which of my friends welcome that energy and which would prefer I never mention that again. Keeping myself in line isn’t being any less honest about who I am. It’s being more respectful of who they are. They’re my friends, and because I love them, I have absolutely no problem adjusting to their needs.

This brings me back to the question of how overtly we need to state our needs in friendships. I don’t tally how each friend’s needs overlap with mine or where I need to adjust. But I think, I hope, that I’m walking a respectful line of being authentic about who I am while giving them the space to be who they are.

Just because a friendship isn’t everything you want it to be doesn’t mean you have to choose between rushing to repair it or lighting the entire thing on fire. Sometimes friendships don’t need to be fixed. They just need to be accepted for what they are. That may mean adjusting your expectations for a period or deciding that, for your own sake, it’s best to pull away.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for a friendship is to stop asking it for things it’s already shown you it can’t give.

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Most of us know at least one person we’d avoid taking a vacation with at all costs. And it’s not because they’re a bad person. It’s because they would meticulously plan every detail, including bathroom breaks, with no room for anyone else’s opinion. To put it lightly, planning a vacation like it’s a military campaign can put people just a little on edge.

Personally, I am a free spirit on vacation. Untethered from restraint, finances, or the concept of a breakfast reservation. But, when it comes to my daily life, oh man do I have a plan. I’m rarely a “one-step-at-a-time person.” I’m a “here’s the entire map, AND I made a topographic map too, just in case” person.

I don’t plan because I want to wreak havoc on someone else’s day. Nobody likes a dictator. But, for me, plans create a sense of safety. Which means that sometimes a disruption feels less like a minor inconvenience and more like a complete implosion.

So, I call myself a planner, but sometimes what I really mean is “I need to know what’s gonna happen for me to feel okay.”

Sometimes labels are really just euphemisms.

I’m not just a planner. I have other labels too. I’m also independent, kind, blunt, curious, ambitious, and a bit of a perfectionist, among other things. And all of those labels mean something to me.

• “I’m easygoing” can also mean I learned that expressing my needs creates friction.

• “I’m loyal” can also mean I’m scared the people I love will leave me.

• “I have high standards” can also mean I was taught that love was based on performance.

These are not binary definitions. You’re not completely carefree or continually suppressing your needs for others. But, the identities we define ourselves by usually reveal something deeper. What do we need? What do we value? What do we think we deserve?

For me, being analytical and planning has practical applications. But, it’s also my way of trying to create a scenario where I can anticipate everything, so I feel safe. It’s not all bad, but it gets heavy when I don’t separate my skill (planning) from my belief (I must know what’s going to happen or I’m in danger).

And the real reason I define myself as a planner isn’t because of what I actually need today. It’s because of what I needed in the past.

Essentially, I’m rooting one of my core identities in a collection of experiences that happened decades ago. And, the cherry on top is that I’m still living as if it’s the present moment. The more I define myself as a planner, the more intense the connection between preparation and safety becomes. At this point, it’s as if I’ve made a contract with myself that I need to plan to feel safe.

The deals we make with ourselves.

News to nobody: Our childhood has a massive impact on our beliefs, emotions, and behavior patterns! Things that seemed true when we were younger, even if they came from a one-off experience, quickly become rules. And rules become facts. And facts become unspoken contracts we live by.

After a lot of reading and a few visits with the therapy fairy, I’ve discovered a whole list of contracts I’d made with myself:

• I need to know what I’m doing before I start anything new.

• Anything less than 9/10 is average. And I can’t be average, or nobody will see me.

• If anything goes wrong, it’s because I am inherently incapable. If I were capable, it wouldn’t have gone wrong.

Great self-talk, right?

I’ll spare you the “everything is our parents’ fault” tirade (because there’s no need to argue facts), but a lot of our self-talk comes from those childhood experiences. That doesn’t mean you can’t change it, but I’m personally convinced that monologue will always be in my head, even as it gets quieter over the years.

This may sound a little backwards, but sometimes what objectively happens matters a lot less than the impact it has on us. We all learn through repetition.

So I learned. And I encoded. And evidently I made a series of contracts with myself. Contracts I thought were just simple facts of life.

Beliefs masquerading as rules masquerading as facts may very well be part of the human condition. But that doesn’t mean we can’t question them. Particularly when the identity contracts that worked for our younger selves start bumping into who we are today.

I thought Excel spreadsheets were my only creative endeavor.

I love getting into the weeds and mapping out details of…well…everything! So naturally I’m an Excel nerd. A beautiful spreadsheet with custom formulas, color coding, and proper cell formatting—what a work of art. 🖤 And, while I can appreciate that you may not think a spreadsheet is beautiful, I’m sure you’ll agree that, as long as it works, it gets the job done.

Now, writing is not an Excel spreadsheet. There’s a real chance that I’ll create something that doesn’t resonate with anyone but me. And, no matter how much I want to plan and prepare, the only way for me to grow is to try. Without a plan.

Or rather, without the safety blanket I’ve been hauling around for the past few decades which, did I mention, is getting heavy?!

According to my rules, starting without a plan or having a plan not work registers as a failure. My failure. But I know I’m not alone on this island. As our wants change, as we change, the labels that gave us meaning can start to feel more like a box we’re forcing ourselves into.

• “I’m easygoing” can feel constricting when you have a strong opinion.

• “I’m loyal” can start to hurt when your loyalty isn’t valued, or returned.

And it’s not about whether an identity is good or bad. It’s more a question of how well an identity we’ve come to define ourselves by still fits who we are today. The more we treat something as a hard rule to be obeyed, regardless of our circumstances, the less freedom we’ll have to try something new. Something different.

Also, we aren’t the only ones enforcing these identities. I can almost guarantee you have at least one person in your life who is pretty damn committed to seeing you as the person you were. Or imagining that someday over the rainbow you’ll magically become the person they want you to be.

How do you know which version of you they’re looking at?

“Why the f*ck is it so hard to just be ourselves?” Well, one of the reasons is because people hold onto different versions of us. Sometimes those are old and outdated versions, like the parent who still treats their adult child like a teenager. And sometimes those are versions of us that never really existed, like the ex who insists that one day, you’ll become the person they always knew you could be.

How do you tell the friend who knows they can always count on you that they need to be more responsible and stop using you as their ride home?

How do you tell your boss who sees you as their go-to person that just because you worked overtime on the last two projects doesn’t mean that this is your new life?

Relationships can start to feel strained when the person you’re becoming no longer aligns with the person they thought you were. And, I hate to break it to you, but this goes both ways. We all have someone in our lives who we still see as the person they used to be.

What happens when we see things differently?

Personally, I struggle with being misunderstood. I try to be as articulate as I can so that my words and actions aren’t misconstrued. Which, let’s be honest, is a fairly lofty goal. Especially because, despite our best efforts, sometimes words come out wrong. Or people interpret them differently than we intended.

This Substack is my first creative project outside those sexy Excel spreadsheets (there’s a fun tongue twister). And, as I’m getting started, I’m asking my closest friends for feedback, and they’re giving me their honest opinions. But that doesn’t mean they necessarily agree with what I am trying to do. Frankly, I’m still figuring out what I’m trying to do! Which means that, sometimes, I’m stuck with the feeling of being misunderstood.

Cue a song that may stop a good number of you from reading or listening to the rest of this piece: “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” by Oasis.

The lyric, “take what you need, and be on your way,” has always had a special place in my heart. And, that’s exactly what I am learning to apply here. Accepting my friends’ feedback doesn’t mean that I need to surrender to it. I can take what’s useful and leave the rest. Maybe it’s not what I planned. Maybe I’m misunderstood. Maybe I just need to let go of these labels?

But what does it all mean?

Please strap in for a journey down the rabbit hole that is my need for perfect understanding.

My therapy fairy helped me find the words to describe what I am actually afraid of:

I am afraid that if someone misunderstands me, I will disappear. Who I actually am will cease to exist and I’ll have to live the rest of my life as their version of me.

I’m aware that’s some abstract shit.

So, here’s the grounded version: Thanks to how I was raised, I feel compelled to explain who I am. Otherwise I’m afraid that nobody will see the real me. Because, for a time, nobody did.

Yes, the way I describe my fear might sound odd, but the desire underneath it is something we all share. We don’t just want to be part of the group. We want to be seen and valued for who we are. Which can become tremendously difficult when the person we’re growing into no longer matches the person we were.

I built my identity around being someone who is so meticulous and precise that I could prevent others from misunderstanding me. The irony is that I ended up confining myself to what I defined as “a planner.” Now, trying something new that I can’t plan for isn’t just a fun little hobby. It’s a challenge to one of my core identities.

I don’t think the solution is to abandon one of my sharpest skills, but I probably need to stop defining myself by it.

So, what does “different” look like?

I don’t know if you’ve ever gone down a “but what’s the root fear underneath it all?” rabbit hole, but I’m sure you can agree that we all just want to be accepted for who we are. Not for who we were. Not for who someone wants us to be. And not as some outdated version of who we think we should be.

“Take what you need, and be on your way.”

Take what you need from the identity that once protected you. Take what you need from the person you used to be. Take what you need from those you have around you.

And let the rest go.

I wanna hold your hand.

Last song reference, I promise! This whole growth thing can feel uncomfortable, especially when we’re in the middle of it. I’m doing my best to hold my own hand as I discover new answers to that million-dollar question: “Who am I?” That doesn’t mean I don’t want someone else to hold it. It just means that whether I get support, or silence, or misunderstanding, I know I am going to be OK.

Aside from literally holding my own hand, I also like to give myself overly dramatic pep talks in the mirror (a real “coach” vibe) and end with an encouraging pat on the ass to get myself moving. It helps me feel like I am still here, even when I’m not meeting my 9/10 standard.

Notice I didn’t say “old” standard, because I can’t guarantee I won’t reach for reassurance through some of those ingrained self-contracts. In fact, I’m certain I will. But, each time I do, which hopefully is less and less often, I’ll be curious to see whether they still fit.

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I’m a creature of habit, and one of those habits is crafting my daily morning latte with my “yes, I know I’m high-maintenance” espresso machine. My routine is simple. I grind my beans, prep the shot, foam the milk, and slowly come back down from whatever morning delusions or dream state I’m wrapped in. This morning, though, I wasn’t quite awake. I’d had five hours of sleep, my body was tense, and my mind was exhausted from the spiral I’d gone through the night before.

I was robotically performing my espresso routine when a spark shot through my mind. It was Descartes of all things. “I think, therefore I am.” A part of my mind was speaking to me. And, as an only child who lives alone, one-on-one conversations aren’t exactly a rarity. Almost immediately, something in me answered, “I think, therefore I am, thinking.”

Sometimes we become so consumed by our thoughts that we start to blur the lines between ourselves, the thinker, and the thoughts, the objects of our awareness. For Descartes, the act of thinking was evidence that there was a thinker. For me, my thinking mind has a way of convincing me I am my thoughts. And my answer, “I think, therefore I am, thinking,” seemed to be my subconscious mind’s way of telling me I was getting lost in them.

I’d had an epiphany. But to give some context as to why adding a word to a well-known quote felt so important, let’s unpack what happened the night before.

Until that morning, I considered myself a firm believer that a good plan is the answer to almost all of life’s problems.

The saying “proper planning prevents piss-poor performance” not only made me laugh but felt like a solid rubric for my life. If I make a plan, I can follow that plan, and then things will go as planned. Simple!

On a practical level, planning makes sense. Having a rough draft of how to get from A to Z increases the chances you won’t get lost mid-alphabet. Add a few contingency plans in your back pocket and you’ve got all the security you need. But the key here is “rough draft.” And I wasn’t making a rough draft. I had planned my full operational strategy for the next few issues, and I was ready to run my first test.

The test included a detailed research phase to discover how to increase visibility and traffic to my journal. The point of writing this is so someone reads it. I can, and do, scream into the void on my own. But this is something I want to share. So I crafted the workflow, downloaded a new app, began the research, and made some genuinely valuable discoveries.

And that’s the entire point of research, isn’t it? Stepping back to grade five science for a moment: I was taught that we make a hypothesis, do some research to test it, then allow the results to inform our conclusions. What I didn’t realize was that, at some point between grade five and now, I started confusing my hypothesis for something I was committed to proving rather than an idea I wanted to evaluate.

So, what did I find?

I found a writer who was quite literally living my dream. She was creating the exact type of content I wanted to create, for the same audience I’d hoped to reach, all with a much leaner and more effective method. She was becoming enormously successful in a very short period of time, and her work was (is) fantastic.

It’s easy to dismiss someone’s success if we feel like they don’t deserve it. Maybe it’s nepotism, family money, or just someone who has had all the lucky breaks. That wasn’t the case here.

She was clearly putting in the work, wasn’t taking any shortcuts, and somehow made it all look easy. Meanwhile, I’m in the mud, trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.

Yes, I was (am) inspired by her work, but it was a stark contrast to my own. The entire system I’d built around the approach I was deeply committed to was being contradicted by the data in front of me.

I’d arrived at a massive “aha” moment, but the discovery wasn’t anything like I’d pictured. I thought I was going to find something that would show me how I could subtly change my approach so my method would be successful. Instead, I discovered that there was a better method altogether, and it was nothing like what I’d envisioned.

Here comes my evening spiral.

Part of me recognized that my research was, by all accounts, successful. I’d found a new approach that could help me with my content and someone who was modeling how to do it. All the work I had done had led me here, and even if it didn’t turn out the way I planned, it was still part of the process.

But the other part of me, my affectionate inner critic, had a lot more to say and was a lot louder. She was clear that, had I known what I was doing, I would have been able to create work as incredible as the other writer’s, and I wouldn’t have so publicly embarrassed myself.

Fear of failure is real. Fear of judgment is real. Putting yourself out there can be terrifying. And the results are never guaranteed.

I knew this. I know this. And yet, all I could hear was my inner critic asking, “Who do you think you are?” Did I really think I was worthy of someone paying attention to what I had to say? Why would I think that?

Make no mistake, I see the flawed logic. I know it’s okay to dive into the deep end, not know what you’re doing, and turn out to be wrong. But, in those moments, logic can start to give way to emotions. And emotions are a fantastic fuel for even more irrational thinking.

I blew right past incessant thinking and dove into the open waters of mistaking every thought and feeling for me. I wasn’t thinking. I was the thinking. I wasn’t feeling. I was the feeling. I couldn’t look at the scenario objectively and recognize that being wrong about something didn’t mean I was a failure. I was living the story directly. Which meant that I was wrong. I was the failure.

So I reached for a safety blanket.

I am no stranger to late-night spirals and I have an arsenal of tools ready to meet them. But that’s not to say I always pick the most appropriate tools for the job. My weapons of choice for the evening were my tarot deck and Arrested Development.

I am a data-driven person. But when I am overwhelmed and can’t make sense of what’s in front of me, I rely on my tarot deck to help guide the way. I’m aware these are near polar opposites, but that’s the exact kind of fuel a spiral runs on.

I stated my intention clearly before I pulled my card. It went something like this:

“The direction of my work is changing and I realize that I need to make peace with being uncertain about the future. But I feel like I’m failing. Objectively, I know that I’m new to this, I’m doing my best, and I need to treat myself better. I truly believe that the lesson here is to keep moving forward and not get stuck on every detail. Please tell me what card I should lean on for guidance this week.”

The card: Justice. Which, in short, reflects on cause and effect and accountability. It’s a “you reap what you sow” sort of message. Which, ironically, I already knew going in.

I let that rattle around in my head while I turned on Arrested Development and began my third consecutive rewatch. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how many full episodes I’ve actually paid attention to, but I know I feel better when I fall asleep laughing.

An hour passed and I was still wide awake. It was now 2:00 a.m., and I needed more clarity. So, back to the tarot deck I went. This time I was brief and just asked for a card to help clarify my interpretation of the Justice card.

The result: the Hanged Man, reversed. This one relates to self-imposed resistance and refusal to let go.

If this writing thing doesn’t turn out, I am seriously considering a future in tarot. The second card gave me the relief I needed, and I fell asleep within 10 minutes.

Now, make no mistake, I also see the flawed logic in trusting my tarot deck to give me answers I already knew. But that’s the rub of all of this. We can be completely aware of what is happening and still feel trapped inside of it. Self-awareness doesn’t necessarily separate us from the spiral we’re stuck in.

For me, self-awareness is usually part of the spiral. I knew I needed distance from my thoughts. I knew it at 12:00 a.m. And I still knew it at 2:00 a.m. But I wasn’t doing anything about it.

Let’s go back to the kitchen.

Five hours have passed. I’m foaming my latte. And suddenly I’m shaken from my half-conscious state by the thought, “I think, therefore I am.” At that moment, I filled in the blank I needed. “I think, therefore I am, thinking.”

I am thinking. I am not my thoughts.

Admittedly, I didn’t get much further than that. I didn’t solve my insecurities. I didn’t launch into a whole new strategy to approach my writing. And I haven’t figured out a foolproof way to ensure that, if I try hard enough, I will get what I want.

I don’t have any of those answers. The only answer I came away with was:

Who do I think I am?

Sydney fucking Buchanan.

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We’ve all had a moment where the words coming out of our mouths couldn’t be further from what we really want to say. And I get it. We can’t tell the barista who’s taken a solid five minutes to make our latte to “hurry the fuck up, I don’t wanna be here!” But wouldn’t it feel good if we could?

Question: How much of your personality is actually just good PR?

Obviously we can’t walk around spouting every thought that goes through our heads to every person who passes by. As a Canadian, I heed the call of social conformity to be kind and smile to everyone I meet. And honestly, I don’t mind it! Everyone loves a friendly Canadian. But what happens when we start forming our entire personality around what other people think of us, rather than just being our damn selves?

Why do we start acting weird when we want somebody to like us?

We’ve all had a moment where we were trying to impress someone and ended up coming off as a complete psycho. We want them to like us so badly that we think we need to use the right words, or have the right outfit, or know the right people for them to even notice us. We create these imaginary standards we think they’re holding us to and then do everything we can to meet them.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done to try and get someone to like you?

I once joked with a girl crush that if I didn’t buy anything on our shopping trip, I would get my nipples pierced. And you best believe that when she called me out for not buying anything, I doubled down and got them pierced that day. That’s how much I wanted to impress her! It was a seriously painful lesson on the cost of doing something just to impress another person. Spoiler alert: It did not get her to like me any more.

Crushes may be the universal metric for just how weird we get when we want someone to like us, but we do it in other scenarios too. Whatever school, work, or social club you’re part of, you want to fit in. And you’ve probably said or done something that is not “you” on your quest to be accepted. It’s normal, and sometimes necessary, but it gets exhausting when that becomes another personality you have to manage.

Who decided on this ideal version of you?

There are loads of psychology articles that explain where your inner critic comes from, why it’s there, what it needs, and all that jazz. I am not an expert on the mechanics of it all, but I am very well acquainted with my inner critic. She loves to constantly and loudly tell me what others think of me and the standards I should be living up to so they’ll accept me. The more time passes, the more I realize that her standards always seem to be just above where I am.

Without veering into a diary entry, I’ll just say I realized that my inner critic made it hard for me to be myself, even when I was by myself. It took some conscious effort to untangle my voice from hers and recognize that the ideal version I was holding myself to wasn’t mine. We do that same thing with other people. We create a version of ourselves that they’ll approve of and then become that person when we’re around them.

But truly, do you like the version of yourself those people approve of?

Do you even like those people?

What if being yourself is not a fixed experience?

There are so many layers of what it means to be human and so many layers of what it means to be you. Realistically, we can’t show every person we meet every single side of ourselves. Mainly because it’s probably completely inappropriate, but also because some things don’t need to be broadcast for all to hear. Ironically, I am doing some broadcasting with this piece. For those of you who know me personally, I’m pretty sure a good number of you didn’t know I had my nipples pierced, or that I like girls. Surprise! That’s a side of myself that, up until now, I haven’t been very vocal about. And that’s okay.

I wasn’t being any less myself by not sharing every piece of me with everyone. And you’re not being any less yourself if you choose to show up in different ways in different relationships because of what’s appropriate.

I don’t think that being yourself means giving everyone access to every side of you. But the version they get should still be a reflection of who you actually are. Not who you think you should be.

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Editor’s note: This piece was published in the early stages of finding my voice. For a less serious, more intimate POV, check out Issue 03 and beyond. If you like serious, message me! I love a good point-counterpoint debate.

We usually recognize what a change has taken before we understand how it is going to affect us. The event may happen in a moment, but its effects continue to unfold. This week’s journal looks at why change can feel like loss and why understanding it takes time.

How would you define your relationship with change? To say that it’s complex and present in all facets of life feels too vague because it doesn’t describe what the relationship actually is. Okay, maybe those aren’t the words you’d use to describe it. But I’m curious, what does change look like to you? What does it feel like for you?

Change seems to be full of contradictions. It’s dynamic and unpredictable, but can feel fixed and inevitable. It’s powerful, yet subtle. Even our attitude toward change shifts depending on the form it takes and how it impacts us. I recently found out that one of my closest friends is moving, and while I’m excited for her to start a new chapter, there’s also a bittersweet feeling I can’t ignore. Her life is changing and, inevitably, our friendship will too.

Regardless of how we feel about it, change requires us to leave something behind. A relationship. A dream. The person we were just a moment ago. Whether or not it feels like a loss, in a way, it is. Something isn’t coming with us. But that doesn’t mean we have the full picture. Change can’t be fully understood the moment it happens. We can usually see what we’re losing before we understand how the change is going to affect us. But that doesn’t mean loss is all there is.

We crave what’s familiar —

Our relationship with change is shaped by our attachments and the meaning we derive from them. Attachments to others, to identity, to routines, to an imagined future. Our sense of safety is often tied to knowing what to expect. Novelty can be intriguing, but most of us find comfort in consistency and routine. However temporary, a disruption can make loss more apparent and deepen our identification with what we’re losing.

It may seem counterintuitive, but we develop a sense of safety from what we call “normal,” even if we don’t benefit from it. We can still feel the loss of what was familiar, even if it wasn’t ideal or practical. Whether the change registers as a loss is subjective. What’s not subjective is that we cannot fully acknowledge a changed reality if we refuse to recognize something has ended.

When good news stirs up mixed feelings —

Of course, change can also come as a welcome gift. But that’s not to say there isn’t a loss. It just doesn’t get your attention right away, if at all. That immediate sigh of relief that comes when dinner plans you didn’t actually want to keep are canceled. Your good friend sharing that they not only got a promotion, but are getting a sizable pay increase. Both sound like good news! Yet, even these seemingly positive events can create a sense of uncertainty. You can begin questioning what led to the change. Did they cancel dinner plans for everyone just because they knew you didn’t want to be there? You can also start to question yourself in relation to the change. Is your friend’s promotion a signal that you should be doing more in your career? You’re not losing anything tangible in either scenario, but you still don’t know what the change means or how it may affect you. That lack of clarity can sometimes feel like a lack of control.

When uncertainty is all we’re certain of —

An unexpected change can leave us feeling powerless. When parts of our lives we thought were within our control change in ways we weren’t prepared for, it’s hard to predict how we’ll react.

There are times when ongoing uncertainty becomes a simple fact of life. In my early twenties, I was diagnosed with a chronic condition that substantially changed what my life would look like. Nothing in the first month of treatment could have prepared me for what was to come. The interventions weren’t working as expected, my body wasn’t reacting as expected, and I was advised to let go of any expectations and accept that I would have a “reduced quality of life.” I put that in quotes because I will never forget when my specialist said it to me.

Here’s the thing: I’m not unique. You don’t need to have a chronic condition to have experienced a version of this story: losing your sense of normal, learning that a plan isn’t going to solve the problem, or realizing that who you are is not who you were and your life isn’t going to look the way you’d imagined.

I’ve lived with my condition for over a decade. My daily life still involves constant symptom management, and there are still changes! When I was younger, my uncertainty about these kinds of changes turned into hopelessness. I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t look like the present. While it’s still true that nothing can undo what’s been done, I am a fundamentally different person from that twenty-one-year-old sitting in a hospital room, being told they weren’t going to get any better. I also have fundamentally different views on how my life was changed by my condition, and they’re not all bad.

Some things take time —

Whatever sets a change in motion can happen in an instant, but the ripple effect takes time to develop. We make assumptions about what a change means based on the limited information we have at the time. What initially appears to be a small change may later reveal a greater loss or opportunity than we anticipated; the same is true of what first appears to be an obvious gain. As time passes, a change may expose costs that were unforeseeable in the beginning.

The saying “change doesn’t happen overnight” is exactly right. We need time to process and reconcile what happened, then decide how we are going to adapt. Put simply: the event that sparks a change can happen in an instant, but we need time to understand it and figure out how to live with what’s changed. Which brings us to everyone’s favorite A-word: acceptance.

Acceptance and what comes next —

Acceptance, in its simplest form, is acknowledging what is true. It doesn’t mean that we agree with it, that we want it to happen, or that we won’t oppose it. Some changes, some losses, are irreversible. Others are temporary. How we respond to change plays a significant role in how we experience it. Once we accept that something has changed, we can respond to what is happening in front of us. Not what we wish was happening.

Part of responding to a change means learning how to live with it. Sometimes it involves trying to change it back, if that is a realistic option. But if we can’t undo what happened, we may need to adjust our course or create something new.

I mentioned that my understanding of how I would be affected by my condition has transformed significantly since my diagnosis and early treatments. It took me years to accept that my condition was not going away. I spent that time fighting, searching, medicating, and meditating before I finally accepted what was. And once I did, my life changed again. My condition didn’t go away, but it no longer defined every part of how I saw myself or my life. I started to learn how I could adjust my daily life so that I did not feel defined by the “reduced quality of life” I had been prescribed.

When we remain committed to a past version of reality, we are forced to continually confront the difference between what is and what we believe should still be. Our relationship with change becomes adversarial. Speaking directly from my experience, the longer I resisted accepting what was changing, the more I suffered.

Who doesn’t love a good process?

So, how would I describe my relationship with change? Truly, my entire concept of change transformed when I embraced it as a process rather than any single moment. It doesn’t arrive in any one action, word, or event. It is ongoing, and I’ve come to accept that I may not understand it in its entirety until enough time has passed for things to play out. Really, I may never know its full impact. And that’s okay.

Sometimes change feels like a loss because it is a loss. But as long as I’m living beyond any one moment, I have learned that there is more to come. And there’s at least a chance that what’s coming is better than what is, maybe even better than what was.

Accepting change as a process doesn’t make it inherently easy or positive. But it reminds me to temper my judgments, loosen my assumptions, and lean on what I know, or at least believe, to be true.

Subscribe to Sydney Buchanan for new explorations every Sunday.

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Editor’s note: This piece was published in the early stages of finding my voice. For a less serious, more intimate POV, check out Issue 03 and beyond. If you like serious, message me! I love a good point-counterpoint debate.

We spend a surprising amount of time trying to understand ourselves. We replay conversations, explain people's behavior, and search for reasons behind what happened. But understanding isn't always the same as experiencing. This week's journal explores what happens when we explain our experiences before we've fully felt them.

Understanding isn’t the same as experiencing —

It’s a natural part of the human experience to be fully present in a moment, only to have that moment interrupted by a thought. The thinking mind has a way of slipping into the background so naturally that we stop noticing it’s there. Whether we’re genuinely trying to understand something or are simply distracted, this pattern becomes so ingrained that we begin identifying with our thoughts and accepting them as part of the present moment. With enough practice, we fall into the trap of mistaking intellectual understanding for lived experience.

How this plays out in real life —

Imagine you’re out with a friend. Your visit runs a little longer than expected, so you call your partner to let them know you’ll be late for dinner. The moment you hang up, your friend says they could hear your partner’s tone and waits for your reaction. You don’t hesitate to answer. Your first instinct is to explain that your partner is always exhausted after work and that you being late adds stress to their day. You may even feel guilty and start wondering what you could have done differently. Among all your thoughts is a much quieter, almost gnawing feeling that something isn’t right. You can’t quite name it, maybe you don’t want to name it, but it’s there.

You’re quick to reply. You’re used to your partner being irritable after work and have already justified it. Your inner dialogue tells you “They have a high-pressure job and need time to themselves to unwind. It makes sense they’d be annoyed if your schedule interrupts that.” So you work around their needs. You understand their reasons and accept the scenario as it is.

You don’t dwell on that gnawing feeling. Your explanation bypasses it entirely, leaving it unrecognized and unaddressed. Their reasons were enough.

We explain before we experience —

“Did he have a tone? I didn’t notice. He’s always exhausted after work.”

Some experiences are too much for us to process emotionally. In extreme cases, we revert to our survival brain. More commonly, our mind skips the uncomfortable emotion and jumps into rationalization, allowing us to explain a situation without having truly felt it.

Why? Because it’s easier than addressing the feeling. Our explanations are comforting because they give us a sense of control. We think that if we understand something, we can influence it. We prefer to interpret events in ways that give us power over the narrative because it feels safer than confronting what we’re actually feeling.

We often mistake our interpretations for reality —

“Did he have a tone? I didn’t notice. He has a high-pressure job. If he sounds tense it usually just means he’s stressed from work.”

Our interpretation, the way we perceive an experience, impacts how we make sense of it. What seem like objective questions (what happened, why did it happen, when did it start, whose fault was it) become nuanced by our point of view. Our point of view then becomes our reality: the baseline we measure against.

We’re inclined to adopt a point of view that protects us, or how we see ourselves, from unpleasant truths or experiences. That inclination also makes us more likely to justify and support things that are familiar, that we already believe, than to accept things that go against our preconceived notions. Rationalization can keep us safe from the experience in front of us and the deeper truths it can reveal. Accurate or not, our interpretations cement our understanding of “what happened.”

We mistake understanding for acceptance —

“Did he have a tone? I didn’t notice. I mean, it makes sense if he’s annoyed. I gave him really short notice.”

Curiosity dies when we believe we fully understand something. There is no reason to question or explore what we already know is true. Once we think we understand something, we begin to live in that reality and accept things as they are. Except we aren’t accepting things as they are. We’re accepting them as we see them.

How it impacts us —

There’s a cost to being truly present. Being open to an experience can be uncomfortable when it challenges our point of view. But what’s the cost of not emotionally connecting to the present moment? If you mistake intellectual understanding for lived experience, you’ll end up experiencing your explanations, not reality. You’ll become fluent in your interpretations and yet somehow feel like a stranger in your own life. In searching for an explanation, you’ll miss the feeling you were trying to understand.

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