Faking It

So our class was supposed to meet in the Library that particular evening and I forgot my student ID.

Without it there is no entrance into the Library, well not unless you leave your drivers licence. The security is  tight at the library to say the least because of course we wouldn't want the uneducated masses trying to break in and learn something.

So the location of my ID is currently undetermined and was the same that very night. The disorganization of anything in my possession once again came back to haunt me.

So I left my licence with the security guards, hesitantly, and was left with a parting warning that I MUST be out of the library by 6:30pm.

Once upstairs, in the classroom, I informed my fellow classmates and professor of my plight. What to do, What to do. One classmate generously offered the loan of her ID, I could  just pass as her.

So I went back downstairs and collected my licence. I exited the North entrance of the library, like a fugitive and returned at the South entrance where I swiped my friend's Id. The whole time I'm envisioning being questioned by the security guards, getting in some freak accident where I am identified wrongly by the ID I'm carrying, or being a part of some criminal investigation in which I am questioned as to my whereabouts on such and such day and the proof is not in my favor because I LIED. I made my way back to class, head down, collar up, hands in pockets, channeling the spirit of Carmen San Diego.

Rules. Obviously I rarely break them. Five minutes in and out and I was a nervous wreck.

I had every right to be there, I am a paying student with no outstanding library fees and yet, I felt like an impostor. I felt like I was waiting for the moment when someone would discover I wasn't who I claimed to be and didn't belong. I waited for the library G-men to bust in and take me out.

So this is getting to be a pattern.

When you start getting older you find yourself in all kinds of new roles and though you are somewhat ready for them, they are kind of like new shoes with a little room to grow. Each time you show up, you worry that someone is going to realize you don't really belong there. Somone's going to figure out you're too young, too silly, too under qualified, too different, too random, too trendily dressed (hey this is a list of irrational fears, better name them all), too distracted.

Taking on these roles often feels like pretending to be someone else. I check myself at the door and sneak in under the guise of a different identity.

So when people yell at you to wait in the hall or refuse to tell you where the faculty mailboxes are because they assume you're a student, you find your fears confirmed.

But this is part of the transition. Its taking off your training wheels so you can learn to ride without them, not because you already can. IT IS taking on a new identity because you're expanding who are but remembering your job is not your identity, at least not all of it.

Sometimes we have to fake it not for other people, because, on paper, we do belong, we're qualified and we've proven that. Sometimes we fake it for ourselves, we don't yet feel validated or at home in these new parts of identity so we "pretend" until we do. We fake it until we understand these are new parts of who we are, and we begin to feel comfortable in a new skin.

I don't know that there's a nice wrap up answer to this one,I think its part of the process of getting older, and change.

So as long as my students talk to me in the elevator like I'm one of them on the first day of class and as long as I'm leading people who have years of life on me, I'll be adjusting.

At the end of the day, I'll probably trip over something and end up with a bruise anyway. Its what brings me back to reality and reminds me I'm still Melanie, carrying someone else's ID or not.