She's a different person now

{Yes, it's been a while. The last year and a half have been filled with moving to Seattle, starting my Master's program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and generally enjoying life. Although it seemed as if I had forgotten this blog, I hadn't.  And here I am again.}

Today we had a guest speaker in my ESL Research course. It was a graduate student who is currently working on research for her PhD.  She explained her research project and described the joys and sorrows of "real" research.  During her discussion, she shared the processing of doing interviews and then going back and listening to the recordings for transcription.  She said she would often listen to the recordings and then say to herself, "Nora! Why didn't you ask that next obvious question???  Why didn't you push the farther?". As expected, she said she couldn't go back and ask the participant about it. But the reasoning she gave wasn't what I was expecting. Instead of saying like "Oh, he would've forgotten" or "He won't remember", she said, "He's a different person now."

I LOVE that idea. The thought that I am continually changing into a new person and I can't go back to being the old me is utterly thrilling. It means I am not bound by who I was. I become a new person each time I participate in the mundane and the not-so-mundane experiences of my day. I am not the same person I was yesterday. I have changed. The yesterday-me no longer exists. It puts a whole new perspective on renewal - it means that the process is continuous. I am being renewed every day, in each moment I experience.

I breathe in the fullness and richness of life. I observe with joy as life abundantly supports me and supplies me with more good than I can imagine. 

~~ Louise Hay