Would I be the same person if I weren't here? It depends on how you define self. Is self a soul? A personality? Memories you possess? Is my self Grace Ellen Oberholtzer, born on August 7 in Atlanta 18 years ago, daughter of Chris and Jane (now divorced), older sister to Benton and Will, lover of video games, hockey, and watching the stars on cold nights?
If I didn't have those things--if I stopped liking hockey or if my parents hadn't divorced--would I still be Grace?
I don't know. I'm not convinced. My choices weren't all free, if any truly are, so why then would I be able to choose to change?
I ask because I returned home again, and knowing self is crucial yet shaky when you return to those places you knew long ago. I sat in the church of my youth, where my youngest brother was baptized, where I first felt godly awe, and I knew I was not the same as I had been 5 years ago, when last I was there. I'm older, taller, less awkward. I know more about history, math, literature. And my old friends say I'm mostly the same now as then, but am I? Am I Grace, the same one who sat there in the pew half a decade ago?
I don't think so. I don't know what I would have said to myself then, or how I would have treated 13-year-old me, but it wouldn't be the same way I'd treat myself now. And yes, those years are full of change for anyone, but are 20-25 any less tumultuous? 30-35? Anything can happen anytime. So I don't think I'm exactly the same.
To consider that--my shifting sense of self--in regard to past decisions and present-day circumstances leads to the kinds of questions I'll never answer or know. I can only say that it would have been a different Grace on April 10, 2012 in Michigan or Knoxville or Virginia. One with most of my memories, but one building new, different ones all the time.
Who knows what they might have grown into.
