She almost said no. Actually, she had already started to. “I don’t really…” Then she stopped. Her friend was looking at her across the table, waiting.
It wasn’t an outrageous suggestion. No one was asking her to jump out of an airplane, move to another country, or do anything remotely worthy of the expression on her face.
Her friend had simply asked if she wanted to take a beginner pottery class with her.
She knew absolutely nothing about pottery. She wasn’t artistic. At least she didn’t think she was. She had never been particularly good at making things with her hands, and she could already picture herself sitting at a wheel while everyone else created beautiful bowls and she produced something resembling a lopsided ashtray.
She laughed. “I’d be terrible at it.” Her friend shrugged. “So?” “So?” It was such a simple answer that she didn’t have one of her own. “So?” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d considered doing something she might not be good at.
For most of her adult life, she had been drawn toward things she knew how to do. She had built a career around competence. People came to her because she had answers. Her family counted on her to know what needed to happened next. Even socially, she tended to stay comfortably inside the boundaries of the woman she knew herself to be.
She knew her strengths. She knew her weaknesses. She knew what she liked. She knew what she didn’t. Or at least she thought she did.
“I’ll go,” she heard herself say. Her friend smiled. She was a little surprised by her answer. And, if she was being truthful, she liked that feeling.
Two weeks later, she was sitting in front of a spinning piece of clay wondering what on earth she had been thinking. Her hands were wet. There was clay on her shirt. The instructor had demonstrated something that looked ridiculously simple, and within seconds her perfectly centered lump of clay had collapsed into itself. She looked over at her friend. Her friend’s wasn’t much better.
They started laughing. Not polite laughing. The kind where you can’t stop, which of course made everything worse.
The instructor came over, rescued what was left of the clay, and patiently showed her again. This time she stopped trying so hard. She let her hands feel what was happening instead of worrying about whether she was doing it correctly. Slowly, awkwardly, something began to take shape.
It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t symmetrical. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was supposed to be. But it was hers. And she loved it.
Driving home that evening, she noticed how good she felt. Not accomplished. That surprised her. There was no certificate waiting for her. No one was going to congratulate her. She certainly hadn’t discovered some hidden artistic talent. She just felt…lighter.
For two hours she hadn’t been responsible for anything important. She hadn’t been the person with the answers. She hadn’t been trying to be impressive, productive, efficient, or useful. She had been a beginner. And she’s forgotten how much fun there could be in not knowing what you were doing.
That thought stayed with her. When had she become so certain about herself? When had “I’ve never done that” quietly become “That’s not me”?
Maybe it happens without our realizing it. We collect evidence about ourselves over the years. We decide we’re adventurous or cautious. Creative or practical. Social or private. Athletic of definitely not athletic. We tell the same stories about who we are until eventually they stop sounding like stories and start sounding like facts. And perhaps…some of them are. But maybe others are simply old information.
She thought about all the things she had automatically dismissed over the years, not because she didn’t want them, but because they didn’t fit the person she had already decided she was. That was the part she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Maybe knowing yourself isn’t always about becoming more certain about who you are. Maybe sometimes it means leaving enough room to be surprised.
The following week she went back to the pottery studio. Her little bowl was waiting on the shelf. She picked it up and laughed. It was even more crooked than she remembered. There was a strange dip on one side and the bottom wasn’t quite level. Put something round in it and there was a reasonable chance you’d be chasing it across the table.
She ran her fingers along the edge. She loved it even more. Not because it was beautiful. Because she had made it. Because she had been willing to be bad at something long enough to discover that she enjoyed it. Because somewhere between the wet clay, the crooked bowl, and laughing until her stomach hurt, she had met a version of herself she hadn’t known was there.
She took the bowl home and put it on the kitchen counter. She didn’t hide it in a cabinet. She wanted to see it.
Over the next few days, she found herself smiling whenever she walked past it. It made her wonder what else she’d been wrong about. Not in some enormous, life-changing way. Just enough to make things interesting again.
Maybe she’d like that restaurant she always assumed wasn’t her kind of place.
Maybe she’d enjoy traveling somewhere without planning every hour.
Maybe she’d wear that dress she’d picked up three different times and always put it back because it didn’t look like something she’d normally wear.
Maybe there were books she’d never read, people she’d never met, places she’d never wandered into, and parts of herself she’d never given a chance.
She didn’t need to make a list. She didn’t need a plan. For once, she didn’t even need to do anything with the realization. She simply liked knowing there might still be things about herself she didn’t know.
The next morning, she poured her coffee and noticed the crooked little bowl sitting beside the coffeemaker. She smiled. For years, she thought knowing herself meant having fewer questions. Now she wasn’t so sure. And somehow, that felt wonderful.
Maybe we aren’t meant to have ourselves completely figure out. Maybe one of the greatest pleasures of getting older is discovering that there are still ways to surprise ourselves.
She picked up the bowl, turned it around in her hands, and laughed again at just how wonderfully imperfect it was. Then she set it back down where she could see it. A small reminder that perhaps the woman she knew so well…still had a few surprises left in her.
When was the last time your surprised yourself?