change is my comfort zone
the pitfalls of becoming vs. being
People often praise reinvention. In my case, I made it a lifestyle.
Not even getting into the 12 career pivots and Pokémon-card-level certification hoarding, I’m clearly unwell and compulsively doing PhD-level research on every passing obsession (and yes, I have an actual PhD so it tracks :( ).
Red – what moves me/ Passion, intensity, connection
Green – what I’ve mastered/ Specialist-level or expert-level knowledge/degree
Purple – the lenses of who I am beneath it all / Being itself; the perspective through which everything is filtered
for example, right now I’m barely resisting law school, even though I already spiraled about property law at 2 a.m. and got my real estate license. Latest official identity? Longevity wellness specialist. It’s giving “never enough,” but make it high-functioning. + Then there’s the extracurricular chaos: tango, acting, pole dancing, Pilates reformer (which, obviously, I decided to train to teach).
+ I rotate through 8 books a week depending on whatever rabbit hole I’ve fallen into. Add in hours of therapy, daily existential spirals, and my husband as my co-pilot in unpacking childhood wounds and purpose crises over dinner.
And still, all most people see is the coffee cups, the smile, the pretending-to-be-a-normie-girlie energy. Just the tip of the iceberg. The visible stuff. The safe stuff. The stuff that doesn’t scream, “Hi, I am fundamentally unchill and addicted to becoming.”
I’ve moved homes, countries, and entire belief systems every couple of years. It sounds glamorous until you account for the emotional whiplash: the paperwork, the packing, the adapting. And underneath it all, one truth: Change is my comfort zone.
I once thought it was ambition. Then creativity. Then curiosity. But it’s clearer now: it’s also survival.
Growing up in chaos taught me that stillness isn’t safe. So I became a master of movement. I wore reinvention like armor, changing careers, passions, and identities the way others scroll through streaming options: frequently, impulsively, always searching for the one that fits the mood. I chase novelty. I live for stimulation. I dive deep, then move on I rarely stay long enough to feel the reward or enjoy what I’ve built. I’m always standing at the edge of the next breakthrough, never quite resting in the one I just had. Through therapy (and some late-night dream analysis with ChatGPT ), I started seeing the pattern.
The moment something becomes tangible—built from my mind into reality—I lose interest. I’m bored. It’s like the act of completion threatens my freedom. Like stillness makes me too visible, too vulnerable.
[For the science behind it, The Molecule of More explains a lot. But like... just because your brain gets it doesn’t mean your nervous system’s on board. Or that you’ve actually lived it. And this!! this is why I physically cannot deal with people who read five think-pieces and suddenly believe they’ve done the work. That’s one of the easiest shortcuts to one of my tantrum triggers: the know-it-all main character who refuses to go deeper into the meta-thinking, the transcendental, the actual terrain of transformation. that headline-level awareness grrrh.. Okay. Rant over, but important for later reference! Parenthesis closed ]
How close people perceive me: my friends tell me they really love this side of me, this creative urge, this endless energy. (Not to brag, but I’ve genuinely been called a perpetual motion machine.) They say it’s a gift. That with this kind of knowledge and high-voltage processing power, I could probably rule the world. Their words, not mine, but I’m not rejecting the hypothesis.
How I feel on the inside tho?
Like a firework that never lands.
Like I’m always mid-sentence, mid-shift, mid-transformation… never the after photo, always the time-lapse.
Like my mind is ten tabs open, all loading, it’s just how I’m wired. Restless, curious, hungry. But also kind of terrified.
Like, how can you people like me? I know tomorrow I’ll be a different version of myself, better, maybe. In a year, I’ll probably be unrecognizable: I’ve been through this, where I’ll be doing new things, becoming someone else again. So how can you like me when you don’t even know who I’m going to be?
Sometimes I feel like people who care about me are taking a huge risk, because I’m intense, delusional, always shifting. Some people liked me because we shared an interest or identity at the time… and when I outgrew that, the closeness faded. I’ve noticed that. And it’s why I’m more careful now about who I open my heart to.
I try to base it on who we are on level 18 of depth. Like, if you’re only swimming around level 5, I can’t even begin to open up. I’ll understand you… but you won’t understand me. :( I’ve been at that bus station where you’re at. You still have a long journey ahead. I have all the empathy in the world, but not the patience. Especially if you’re operating at headline-level awareness. The virtue-signaling, empty-vase kind of depth drains me. And that’s why not everyone finds this part of me lovable. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever really felt accepted for it. So I hide it. Or I act like it’s no big deal. Or I pretend to be cool and detached, when really, I’m very chalant (I’m scared). Scared of being cut off again. Labeled “too much,” “too intense,” “too chaotic” just because I’m not... constant.
It makes relationships hard. Like, I have maybe three people [max] where I can go full throttle into the kind of depth where I don’t have to translate myself. I guess I’m exceptionally lucky. Anyway, if this isn’t the newspaper personal ad for finding people like me, I don’t know what is. Get in touch. Let’s meta-layer together.
This is why the column’s called Metareflections after all.