“That’s what you look like” - the springboard practice

Let’s rewind a bit, about six years. When I would tell my therapists I didn’t know anything about myself, they severely underestimated what that meant. The way I usually describe it now is, if I were to pick up a shirt at a store, I would genuinely not know if I even liked it or not, much less if it was something that suited me. I did four years of ceramics, and at the end realized I didn’t even enjoy it - it was just easier to keep going than to quit.

Still understating it, but you get the picture.

The worst part was that when yo'u’re looking for resources on who you are, everything says to look at your past; who you were as a kid, what you’ve always been drawn toward but never pursued - you’re expected to have an innate sense of self to reconnect to, but I was starting from scratch. I felt more isolated than ever.

It started in the smallest way. I was out and about with my partner, and he pointed at a cute stuffed animal and said, “That’s what you look like.”

Okay, pretty cute, but not exactly earth-shattering. That is, until it went on for a while, and I started to notice all the items he pointed at had things in common. They were cute, but they were also usually pink. Or shiny. Or holographic. And then one day, I beat him to the punch. “That’s what I look like.”

WHOA. I recognized me! I saw me in something! And then my friends got in on it. Before I knew it, there was something abstract but consistent that was recognizably ME.

It was only the first step in the journey that led me here, but it was the springboard to my sense of self that launched me into Pisces Glow and beyond.