The past few summers I have felt less and less “at home” in Barcelona. It will always be my favorite city, but it no longer feels mine. Each summer I notice more and more changes: in places opening and closing, in people moving to and from, in demographic shifts and their repercussions. It starts out slowly, but eventually builds to a level you can no longer ignore. Which I think is the same in humans.

I am not the same person I was in high school (praise be!!). I’m not even the same person I was five years ago. I’ve had new experiences, and relationships, and life lessons, and all of those things (hopefully!) make me continually reassess my values and beliefs. As humans we are made to grow and evolve; it is literally in our DNA.

I still physically cringe and become uncomfortable thinking about how I spoke to a couple of my friends decades ago when they told me they had sex before marriage - before I grew up. I kept reading, and studying, and learning, and growing, and having life experiences, and comparing all those things - obsessively. Suddenly, at the age of 25, everything I had been accumulating came to a head, and I was on the receiving end of the same harsh words I had spoken a few years before. I went back and apologized to my friends, who graciously accepted my apology.

I hated high school. A lot. I had come from public magnet schools, and suddenly I was thrust in my neighborhood school - a big bland pot of homogeny. I missed the diversity. How can you grow, and learn, and get better when you’re just surrounded by people who all have the same background, and ideas, and beliefs? It’s only when we get pushback on our own ideas and values that we really look at them and can learn what they truly are.

So many people have pointed out two main things about my current relationship. First, that my boyfriend is a white, midwestern American. And second, that we are extremely different in all aspects. I find it hilarious that people are shocked I’m with a white guy - someone who’s “the same” as me - because they expect me to be with someone more “diverse.” (I mean, honestly, same! I too thought I’d be with some hot Latino or Italian dude.) But that’s why I find their second observation so humorous. It’s as though they expect me to be with someone who’s different than me culturally/racially, but who aligns with me on everything else - he should be different, but only in the ways we expect him to be. I realized this morning that I have always valued diversity, and that even I had been pigeonholing what diversity actually means.

I recently watched “Nobody Wants This” on Netflix with my boyfriend. Obsessed. The conversations they have could be, verbatim, some of the conversations I have with my boyfriend. I loved watching the pendulum swing in each of them as they re-evaluated their values and beliefs because it felt so organic and so real. To me, that is the point of relationship, whether familial, friend, or romantic - to constantly be learning, growing, and reassessing values with each new input. And sure, we may have some more “core” values than others, but even those evolve - I very much value my spirituality, and scripture, and my relationship with Jesus but holy shit does that look different now than it did in the past; I very much value my independence and my individuality, but by their very nature those things look different in a partnership.

The writer of the aforementioned TV show was talking about how being a single woman well into her 30s made her believe, “This is my worldview. No one’s going to be able to change it. These are my habits. They are what they are. And then you meet someone who totally turns that upside down, who makes you want to be a better version of yourself, and who makes you question all the things that you thought were true.” Same.

This past summer I journaled a lot about what being in a relationship means - what it means to compromise and sacrifice and how that’s different than “losing” yourself. I think so often we - and I include myself because I’m guilty of it too! - judge peoples’ relationships and personal evolutions. We see them doing things that maybe we aren’t used to seeing them do, or thinking things they aren’t used to thinking, and so we believe that they are becoming someone different and that is bad, “You shouldn’t change for him/her!” And to that I say, yes. And no.

Here’s something I wrote in my journal on June 16th:

I keep thinking of this idea of “losing yourself” when you meet someone new. I know it happens, I’ve seen it happen, but now I’m not so sure if that’s what’s always at play. I think people assume that - the person loses themself - because the “lost” person quits doing all the things. They spend more time at home. More time with the other person. More time doing things maybe they didn’t like before but suddenly do now - hello listening to country music and watching sports! But it’s not necessarily because they’ve lost themselves or given up on the things they love; it’s simply because they have found someone who makes them so comfortable with who they are, there is no longer a need to fill all the time with hobbies or activities that it turns out - were maybe just time fillers. Suddenly the most important parts are illuminated and all else falls away into the background…The core desires still persist, just in different manifestations. What was the motivation behind the activity in the first place? As long as that remains - it doesn’t really matter how it plays out.

So anyway…all this to say, the more I learn, the more I realize I still have left to learn, and so that makes me especially thankful for the people who challenge and mature me, who “make me want to be a better version of myself, and make me question all the things I thought were true.” May we all continue growing and evolving, and loving those around us as they do the same.