Who am I?

What a question. How does anyone know who they truly are? I remember a time when nobody had social media or even phones, I’m picturing 8 year old me playing with Littlest Pet Shop and American Girl Dolls - I feel like that was the last time (well maybe not lassstt) I felt like outside influences weren’t so all encompassing. When my mom took my friends and I to Libby Lou for my 7th birthday, I felt like me and I find myself parked on those memories a lot.

I created my Instagram account in 7th grade, after getting my first phone for Christmas. I had an iPod in like 5th and 6th grade, but couldn’t text or call outside of Kik or whatever texting app we were using at the time. I’d play Angry Birds, Tiny Tower, Sally’s Spa, it all just felt like a “grown up” way of playing with toys you know? Back to the story, I created my instagram account @HeyLaurenRayne which is funny because it’s not at all an embarrassing first @ name for a social media account. I also have kept the same account since then, without forgetting my password. I remember my first posts felt like I had to brag about something.. going to Starbucks and getting a frappuccino - only a flex for the small town kids where the nearest starbucks was 30+ minutes away. You were basically flexing everything back then. I got my first pair of black thick rimmed Ray-Ban glasses and wore headbands down on my forehead everyday. The girls I went to school with started calling me a hipster, although now looking back at it, I feel like maybe it was a mockery? No hate to anyone because I probably would have bullied myself as well. I remember my first Victoria’s Secret Pink backpack and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world; it was navy blue and had their logo all over it. My mom wouldn’t buy my their yoga pants with the fun flip over belt with rhinestones, so I decided to wear my backpack whenever I could. All I was doing was trying to fit in, like chronically fit in. When your class size is like 100 people, the hierarchy of popular kids started in literally kindergarten. Junior high was no doubt some of the hardest years of school, because all you wanted was for people to like you. Every year, the football boys would ask a girl to wear their jersey on homecoming and I never had a jersey to wear which would literally crush me. I distinctly remember thinking I would never have a boyfriend because I thought no one liked me. Looking back this is so dumb and I don’t even know why I’m telling you guys all this. I think it supports my point of finding confidence through social media though. I modeled in junior high; I was on a few commercials and had an agent, the whole bit. That resurfaced an insufferable amount of confidence that was suppressed for a long time, now was it a false sense of confidence? Probably, but I felt cool so it sufficed. Posting on Instagram was my thing, I loved it. I would go out of my way to make things look aesthetically pleasing, I was the poster child for a 2013 thirteen year old instagram user.

This arguably has always been a thing. Through high school, early into my real estate career, into motherhood, it’s like always been there. The underlying societal pressure to impress. Which then begs the question , who am I truly with no outside influences? Is that even possible to know? I joke with my friends all the time that I have a quarter life crisis every week or so. I find a new trend to follow, I’m obsessed, I fixate on that content, then on to the next. I find a new vibe I want to emulate, and then it doesn’t stick. Which leads me to believe I cannot be the only one, so maybe I am that for someone else? It’s a never ending cycle of navigating your influence, or just figuring out what you truly enjoy. And for the multi-passionate individuals like myself this sentence alone can feel like a death sentence.

Long story short, I’m not sure. I have no clue who I am. I am passionate about one too many things and I have no clue if I’m sporty, boho, relaxed, whatever. I have no idea. I feel like a fraud when I wear athletic clothes. I weirdly don’t mind the taste of coffee that’s been forgotten about for an hour. I for the life of me cannot figure out how to style my broad shoulders. And I think all that to say, in this world we try to compartmentalize every single little aspect of our life. And we weren’t meant to be labeled and put in a box, but on Instagram and every other social media platform, that’s what it feels like. Home decor accounts, social media growth strategy, Amazon deals, fashion influencers, you name it and it feels like everyone has labeled themselves. That’s not me and sometimes this very sense is okay and being multi passionate is not a death sentence.* It’s okay to love everything in fact, it is so so so so so beautiful. We pick up the best qualities of someone else and implement them in our own life, making us up of every person we have ever loved in some capacity. Everyone you meet has influence over you, and I think that is amplified online because you can scroll through their whole feed and learn how they take their coffee, but if you were to meet that person IRL, that probably wouldn’t come up in conversation.

So, who are you? Who am I? We’ll never know because we are forever changing beings trying to navigate an imperfect world filled with imperfect people that we somehow convince ourselves they have it all together, but they don’t. And it’s okay to love the right now version of yourself, because you are perfectly in between it all and that is where you are supposed to be.

Okay love you so much ByEeEeeee

*a reminder for myself