be true to yourself?

Today was long, in the best sort of way. Friends are returning to town, and I had the pleasure of seeing more people I love in one day than I perhaps saw all summer. (This is not to diminish my love for the people I saw this summer! It's not the amount of love--it's the amount of friends.)

At the last social event of the evening, I was describing my day to one of these wonderful friends, and realized how incredibly different each of my interactions had been. I went to church and lunch with a very sweet, close girlfriend who also shares my faith; we had a fun but passionate discussion of what we learned this summer, and prayed together. Then I went to the grocery store and ran into a bunch of my super-smart, ridiculously-ambitious friends from first year, and we got into a spontaneous discussion of classes we want to take while standing in the organic foods aisle (yes, we are nerds). My roommate and I then attended a small gathering but classy gathering where they served wine and iced tea; I enjoyed a delightful dinner at my (married!) friends' house with barbecue and beer; and finally ended the night at a packed party that was, surprisingly and happily, very loud and happy but not too crazy. (Crazy parties are somehow never fun for me; I just spend the whole time worrying someone will hurt themselves.)

Each of these interactions was very different, but each was equally enjoyable. Earlier in the day, while walking to event #3, my roommate was musing about whether we are different people depending on whom we are with. (Forgive the lingering preposition.) It was interesting question that I haven't really thought much about, since so many middle school youth pastors, health teachers, and posters in the hallways reminded me, "Be True to Yourself." Adapting to different groups of people was acquainted with a falseness, so that I would be ashamed to admit I am different with different people. And some of that sense of falseness, I believe, is right--I should be ashamed of the times that I have relaxed my morals or values, or just been afraid to say something harmless but that is true of me ("I like french fries and think organic food is gross") because I am afraid of the opinions of those around me.

But I wonder if maybe the lesson was established a bit too far in middle school. God has made each individual complex--so complex that no one person or group of people will ever "call out" all that is "me." Could it be that being "different" around different groups of people actually allows me to express more of myself? I may not be completely able to love both junk food and poetry, praying and partying, at the same time with the same person (although I will say that I think there is nothing wrong with people who both pray and party--albeit in moderation--and more people should do so!), but those are all a part of me and having a variety of friends allows me to express that. Also--is it totally wrong if I am not only expressing different bits of myself, but actually changing within my different relationships? I have married friends who have told me that they gradually become more and more like their spouses; I don't think this is because they are being "untrue" to themselves, but rather that as they grow in their love for one another their selves actually do change, hopefully for the better. (When I mentioned this to my roommate, she wondered if we should start looking for mates not who match us well now, but who we hope we will become more like in the future!)

Despite being such a creature of habit, I am grateful for these occasional reminders of the incredible variety in my life, in the form of the people who surround me. I hope that I occasionally call out in them a beautiful piece of how they were created that may not be fully expressed in all of their relationships. How precious is that? I feel a little post-modernist saying, "There can be no self except in relation to others," because that's not totally what I mean, but I do want to appreciate a bit of the fluidity of "self"--and maybe tear down one or two of those middle school posters.