“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde
At 67, Clare realized that she’d been asking herself the wrong question her entire life.
Fall was settling into Oregon, the morning light filtering through Douglas firs where the first leaves were beginning to turn. The season here held a quiet grace, so different from the dramatic autumn of her youth in Alaska. For an instant she felt again the expansiveness of watching the moving spectacle of the Northern Lights.
Life Transitions Based on Marriage Experience
Five years had passed since the end of her marriage to John – a long relationship that had dissolved slowly when she finally accepted their philosophical incompatibility. He always spoke convincingly of change but expected her to mold herself to his vision of their life.
She had married twice. Her first had ended when she and Tony acknowledged they had committed to each other prematurely. They were too young and inexperienced. Not having yet developed the skill of resilience, he in particular, and she, too, had resented being inconvenienced by having to make adjustments for the marriage.
In her marriages, Clare had believed her partners shared the values she held close and had tried to live by, the ones she had taught her children: honesty, conscientiousness, and flexibility. She believed strongly that personal growth throughout life is essential – that when people stop learning, they become, no matter what their physical age, brittle and old.
Being thoughtful by nature, she didn’t see these endings as failures; no – though there is sadness when couples cannot find common ground – they were necessary signals that she needed to deepen her perception of herself and others.
A Clash of Perceptions
A realization had struck her yesterday afternoon at the coffee shop where she liked to take a book and spend an hour or so journaling. She’d been reading at a corner table when she overheard a mother complaining about her son’s career decision.
“He was pre-med at Stanford, but he threw it all away to become a park ranger,” the woman said, her voice pitched with disapproval. “All that tuition money down the drain.”
Her friend resignedly nodded in agreement: “At least you tried.”
A fierce heat bloomed in Clare’s chest, a protective shield against the mother’s words. Her hands tightened around her cup, and in her mind, she conjured a defiant response.
“What if he’s doing exactly what he wants? What if he’s following his own star, not letting his dream slip away by conforming to your selfish trajectory of his life?”
Being Responsible to Yourself
Sitting here now, a bigger question arose: How much conforming had she herself actually done? We must all adapt to an extent to live together, but that should not require distorting ourselves.
In the quiet aftermath of this questioning, Clare felt a more profound responsibility welling in her. Not the responsibility to loved ones – a dedication she had shown in her life – but the obligation she owed to her own existence. She was the only person in the history of the world who could be Clare Norton. Not an approximation, not a version shaped by external desires, but the irreplaceable original.
The question wasn’t whether she was happy, successful, or admired. The question was simpler and more urgent:
Am I being the Clare only I can be?
Knowing Yourself Helps with Relationships
She thought of her two daughters, each caught in her own wrestling with the tangled knot of modern life. She pictured Dana, 34 now, still seeking approval from her father that would likely never come, her voice strained during their Sunday phone calls. Then she saw Danielle at 28, who’d sent a photo from her latest research station in Sitka – windblown hair, mud-stained boots, a small figure against the vast sky.
Danielle had chosen her own path, but Clare wondered if her daughter was using that independence to avoid the vulnerability of more intimate connection, the way she changed subjects whenever anyone asked about her interests outside work.
Perhaps being herself was the primary way she could truly guide them now.
Are We Brave Enough?
Clare walked to the window, watching a squirrel scurry, gathering stores for the winter ahead, wondering if Ashland would get snow this year.
She would not waste this gift of a singular life.
The question that mattered wasn’t whether she was good enough, but whether she was brave enough. Clare understood that being herself was the one responsibility that belonged to her alone.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Do you know yourself? What have your learned about yourself that you didn’t know when you were younger? How did you learn it? Do you interact with others based on what you know about yourself now?
