What Is Identity?
Today, October 14, 2026, marks my 32nd birthday. If you know me, then you know I’ve never really made a big fuss about it. I’ve worked plenty of birthdays, and many of them have gone uncelebrated. Why? I guess I just never saw the significance beyond it being another day.
The people close to me would tell you that I’m optimistic, yes, but also indifferent to many things. On a daily basis, I sometimes have to convince myself to have the “proper” reaction to things. I’ve always been go with the flow, mellow, and chill.
As a writer, I’ve recently decided to do what I love most and do it publicly. At 32, I’m just beginning, so I suppose this personal essay will be nice to look back on next year.
As I reflect, I don’t know why, but lately, maybe when I turned 30, I began to examine myself in a new way. I’m sure many people go through something like that around this age, but for me, it felt inexplicable. My thought patterns shifted, and my anxiety, something I can honestly say I hadn’t experienced much before moving to Atlanta, spiked like never before.
I could probably attribute some of that to moving, the new environment, the change in lifestyle, and the introduction to… well, Atlanta. I don’t think I was prepared, really, although I didn’t have any true expectations. I went along with the flow, as I do, and all I could do otherwise was manage each day as it came. That’s what I’m accustomed to.
I wouldn’t call it a midlife crisis. I’ve always been vigilant, aware, and thinking years ahead, but these last two years have been the most confusing and revealing, to say the least. Before moving to Atlanta, I was probably the most sure of myself. The most sure about who I was, the goals and plans for my life, and what I believed. Or actually, that’s a lie. I can’t say I’ve ever been concrete in all my beliefs, but I definitely had an idea. I fit into an archetype, or a stereotype, maybe.
Another thing that probably contributed to my unsettled feelings was cutting my locs in December of last year. I had been growing them for ten years, and they had become part of my identity, much more than I realized. I only understood that after I cut them off and started this year with a completely new headspace, literally. I wasn’t only changing my appearance; I was trying to figure out what still felt like me when so much around me had changed.
I also think the separation from my son played a part. This is the first time I’ve lived without him right under me, seeing him every single day. I went from that to seeing him on weekends and only sometimes throughout the week. I think that affected me more than I had really accounted for.
I also have to admit that going into business with my father played a part. So many changes, so many moments when I was thrown out of my comfort zone, so many times I doubted myself and still walked forward, afraid, unsure, tired, even reluctant. I question whether I would have made some of those decisions if I wasn’t trying to impress my father. I wonder if my true nature reflects that, or if it’s what some would call free will. For the first time in my life, I felt that my father’s absence had a profound effect on me. It was a latent revelation, and, most ironically, I only had it once we connected and I was in his presence regularly. I couldn’t have predicted that if I tried.
Even dealing with the breakup with my son’s mother took a toll on me. Anyone who had spent six years with someone would probably have to figure things out afterward. So many questions and answers were swimming around in my head. I’ve written briefly about this, about the coming of age that happens when you walk past the threshold of 30.
Today, at 32, I’m actually in a great space. Now, if I weren’t in a great space in totality, would I admit it now? Yeah, probably not, but it would get written about at some point. I’m able to reflect on the last two years and deconstruct the evolution. There was an evolution, and there still is one. I’m still discovering myself, and I don’t have it figured out nearly as much as I thought I did.
That makes me wonder about celebrations. I’ve never been the type to celebrate anything, really. I’ll never forget that a girlfriend I had in college once gifted me a book for my birthday, The Science and Practice of Humility. I inadvertently gifted that book to another friend later.
At first, I scoffed at it because I was pompous in my claim to humility. Ironically, that isn’t humble at all when you think about it. I didn’t read the book. I kept it for years, but never opened it because I thought, “What could this book teach me about being humble? I’m the most humble person I know.” In fact, I thought the mere act of gifting me the book was disrespectful.
It seems silly now that I’m typing this out, but that really is how I felt at the time. This was in my early twenties, and it took me at least five years to appreciate that gift. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts, really, and I did learn a lot from it. I don’t remember a celebration, though.
One celebration I remember most clearly, probably because I was surrounded by friends, was my 21st birthday, when I spent a weekend in Atlanta, believe it or not. How’s that for foreshadowing? I was with the group of friends I’m still closest to this day. I think that was the last time I felt like I had a real birthday celebration. It meant so much because I was surrounded by people I care about, people who care about me, and people who share so much of my story and have so much context for who I am. At least, that matters to me. I can’t underscore how much context matters to me, but please don’t hold it against me.
I don’t mean that the birthday celebrations that followed meant less. That isn’t true. People have made an effort to make my birthday special despite my lack of need to acknowledge it at all, and I admire people who take their birthdays seriously. They make it a thing, like a holiday. Some people celebrate for the whole week. I think that’s fantastic.
But at 21, some of the things I believed defined me were probably just being myself and being an individual. I had a real yearning to be different. I didn’t want to dress like anyone else, talk like anyone else, have the same interests as anyone else, or look like anyone else. That’s part of the reason I grew my hair into locs in the first place. Then, of course, that became trendy, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t contribute to why I cut them.
Back then, they called it hipster, but really, I felt like I had always been like that, even in middle school. I like setting trends as opposed to following them, and trust me, I may not have actually set the trends, but I was definitely early on them. I mean, really, I got clowned for certain fashion choices, only for them to become the most popular thing five years later. This happened multiple times. I have witnesses.
But if I had to say it plainly, at that age I just wanted to be different. I wouldn’t conform. I’d rather be a contrarian than a sheep, as they say. If the herd was mostly going right, I was sure to go left, almost every time. That defined me for a while.
These days, I just don’t see myself as that bold a contrarian anymore. Not fully, at least. I’ll always be a cynic. That’s nature. But I don’t feel the need to go out of my way to be different.
I’ve explored a bit of this before in writing about how beliefs become more concrete in your thirties. But what I’ve realized this year is that the things I clung to in my twenties, the things I felt defined me as a person, the locs, the tattoos, the “esoteric” mumbo jumbo and mysticism I thought made me so different, don’t have to define me in the same way anymore. Whether or not I think those things make me different, I can choose to subscribe to them without the pressure of trying to stand out or go against the crowd.
And honestly, I find myself refuting a lot of the old ideals I once held. A lot of the spirituality stuff with crystals, tarot, and astrology really seems silly to me now, believe it or not. You could call it a phase, an evolution, or a rise in my own self-awareness. I don’t know.
But I know identity, as much of a conundrum as it is, is never finished. It isn’t something you discover once, and I don’t think I’m done discovering myself by a long shot. This is just another chapter I’m able to recognize, and it feels good to do that. So this is where I am at 32. I’m writing this down publicly because I want to remember who I was at this point, even as I keep changing.
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