Before today’s essay begins, I should probably explain that being misidentified is not a recent development.

I reached my full height of 6’1” at approximately nine minutes old.

Ever since, strangers have looked at me and confidently decided who I must be.

“Do you play basketball?”

“No.”

“Volleyball?”

“No.”

“May I help you, sir?”

“…Also no.”

People have mistaken me for a coach, a security guard, somebody’s husband, and, more times than I care to count, someone they should probably be intimidated by.

To be fair…

I am an odd combination of really kind…

…and DO NOT SCREW WITH ME.

So they aren’t entirely wrong.

I’ve spent most of my life being introduced to versions of myself that other people invented.

This essay is just the latest chapter.

Less Edited

I realized the other day that I can’t remember the last time I was kissed.

Which isn’t a cry for help.

It’s more… clerical oversight?

Like discovering your driver’s license expired six months ago.

You just think,

“Huh.”

That seems like something I probably should have noticed.

Four years ago, I knew exactly who I was.

Married.

Two kids.

A mama who still answered the phone when I called.

There wasn’t a lot of mystery to it.

Now…

I’m divorced.

The kids have become adults and seem perfectly capable of living entire lives without asking for my advice.

And my mama died.

And, according to what appears to be a statistically significant portion of the population…

I’m probably a lesbian.

Which is interesting.

Because I’m not.

Although…

I do appreciate the aesthetic.

I love a woman with a pixie cut. Especially an undercut.

I am a woman with a pixie cut…

…and an undercut.

It’s not sexual.

It’s… architectural.

It’s confidence.

It’s the sort of haircut that says,

“I own a cordless drill… and yes, I can teach you how to pour concrete.”

I like cottagecore.

I own more linen than any one person reasonably should.

I think old gardens are more romantic than rooftop bars.

A comfortable pair of low-top Converse can get me through almost any emotional crisis.

So I do understand why people are drawing conclusions.

If you saw me walking through an antique store carrying a stack of blue and white plates, you’d probably think,

“Well…

there she is.”

But I think what’s actually happened is that somewhere around sixty, I quietly resigned from the Committee for Performing Conventional Femininity.

I stopped pretending I enjoyed uncomfortable shoes.

I stopped softening my opinions so certain men wouldn’t feel as uncomfortable as they were making me.

I stopped apologizing for knowing how to build things.

Lift things.

Fix things.

Pursue things.

And maybe…

Maybe what I really stopped apologizing for was taking up space.

Physically.

Intellectually.

Creatively.

Financially.

Emotionally.

At six-foot-one, I’ve been taking up physical space my entire life.

It just took me another sixty years to get comfortable taking up the rest of it.

Apparently, if you become comfortable enough in your own skin, eventually somebody decides you’ve changed teams.

Which feels unfair.

Because I didn’t join another team.

I just left one.

And, if I’m honest…

I’m still wandering around the parking lot looking for my car.

My daughter and I were talking this weekend about how I constantly get mistaken for an adult.

Mostly because of my age.

It’s unsettling.

Because I still spend a surprising amount of my day wondering whether I’m thriving…

…or just aggressively winging it.

People assume that by sixty-one you’ve arrived somewhere.

That you know things.

That you’ve developed a skincare routine.

That you’ve stopped Googling things like,

“Is it possible to be spiritually sensitive and also extremely tired of everyone’s shit?”

The internet says yes.

The internet says many things.

Meanwhile, every time I catch myself in the mirror, I wish I were as fat as the first time I thought I was fat.

Which feels incredibly rude…

…and painfully ill-informed…

…of my younger self.

She had no idea.

I did read somewhere that people who carry a little extra weight live longer than the people who mention it.

I’m choosing to believe that study.

Mainly because the alternative involves cardio.

The trouble is…

Other people aren’t the only ones who misidentify me.

I do it too.

Quite often, actually.

I have spent years referring to myself as a hot mess.

Which is probably unfair.

Not inaccurate.

But unfair.

The Irish have a phrase I like much better.

A holy show.

I love that.

It feels less like a diagnosis and more like a temporary weather report.

There are days I’m writing books.

Building businesses.

Planning to restore three historic houses.

Dreaming up chef’s dinners and flower fields and old porches where strangers become friends.

And there are days I’m wearing yesterday’s T-shirt , surviving on walnuts and Kefir, trying to remember where I put my phone…

…while talking on it.

A holy show.

Maybe I keep confusing being overwhelmed with being incapable.

They’re not the same thing.

The funny thing is…

I don’t actually feel like I’ve become someone different.

I feel like I’ve become someone less edited.

Which, now that I think about it…

…may be the first accurate identification I’ve had in years.

The parts of me that have always loved old houses and old books and gardens and linen shirts have simply stopped waiting for permission.

Somewhere along the way I realized I wasn’t trying to become a new woman.

I was just getting reacquainted with the one who’d been patiently waiting underneath all the performing.

Maybe that’s what getting older really is.

Not becoming someone else.

Becoming increasingly unwilling to pretend you’re anyone else.

Although…

if I ever buy a Subaru…

…we may have to revisit the conversation.

Love, Lannie♡