The Chameleon

Shapeshifting, friends with atheists, and seeking identity

I’ve been living as the contradiction of somebody who deeply desires to not fit in or be “normal”...while also having the ability to be a professional shapeshifter.

I was always very involved, especially as a child and young adult. My parents were very adamant about not raising a child who was just in the house all day not having any meaningful experiences or opportunities for growth…and this is something I’ve become very grateful for. I played various sports, (all of which contained different cliques and personalities) I dabbled in theater both as an elementary student and also as a high schooler, even randomly scoring the lead role in one of our school's productions…I was in the band (both concert and marching…two different beasts) played violin in the orchestra when I was a bit younger, dabbled in the school chorus for a year, briefly was involved in my local church in a small capacity, and I was a counselor at a children's camp in my hometown for some reason over the course of one summer. My involvement and incorporation into most of these genuses was my own doing, and some of them were strongly encouraged upon me by my parentals. And I could even argue that my later decisions to be involved in various classifications were influenced by the habit and pattern of being overly entangled in varying sets of demographics.

The strongest case for my chameleon-like nature would be my insertion into what was essentially my high school debate team. (in the form of an AP Politics class where our school had a long history of winning state championships in arguing political questions while citing our constitution and other crap as proof for whatever case we were trying to solve) Not only was this an entirely new family to enter into on top of all of the others I had already adopted…but I was a part of this class during an election year, where each senior class of history/politics/etc…would randomly be selected a political party and candidate that they had to embody, and then they would hold public debates in front of segments of the school where you had to debate as that candidate. Our class that year was assigned the political party that is completely opposite of all of my beliefs, and somehow my best friend and I went out there as the president and vice-presidential candidates and convincingly debated in favor of policies and ideas that we actually detested. And we did a great job of it! (we won the school election…we lost a piece of our souls)

And I can’t stress this enough, I was VERY happy to be a part of all of these things. Some of my most prized childhood memories are tied to one of the many groups I was involved with, and the many friends I made along the way, or the tighter bonds I built with the friends I already had who just happened to be along the journey with me. But as I look back now, what strikes me most aren’t the memories of the good times or laughs, or even the bad times, but rather just how normal it seemed to me to be “friends”, or at least successful acquaintances, with so many different groups of people. I could be in conversation with anyone on any of the sports team, then hop over to my band friends, then hang around the Jesus people for a bit, then talk about the Bill of Rights like the nerd I am at heart, then hop on stage and sing with the theater crew…and it was all just normal. It’s like I spent most of my days as a kid jumping around to different parts of my brain and personality depending on the day and time, and navigating different versions of myself to fit the group I was around at the time. I think all of this played equal parts in building my personality, while also fogging it.

And that’s nobody's fault, it’s just who I am. I don’t blame that on my parents or peer pressure by friends or anything like that. Again, I’m very happy I was as involved as I was, but it did make me realize how good of a people pleaser I was. How skilled I was at analyzing the personalities of those I was surrounded by, altering my own data slightly enough to where I could mold myself into said milieu, and just be one of the group, no matter what group it was.