Do ≠ Be

Today was a good day.
Correction: today was a great day!
I cannot lie and say that I haven't realized it, but I haven't been myself--whoever that "self" is--for a long time now. I started losing that weird/funny/crazy self that I loved when I first walked into my dorm room freshman year. From my last blog, it's clear that I've changed and while I am happy with the person that I have become, I've felt incomplete for the past couple of months. I've felt like the inside aspects of who I am have gotten stronger, but the outside facade has crumbled. I thought I was crazy and I probably sound crazy writing this, but here goes!
I had lunch with my wonderful friend, Ellie, today. She is so great! Anyways, I had asked her to eat with me as a kind of "pump up" for a big interview that I had today. An hour and a half later we had covered a huge amount of topics, but Ellie shared with me something that made me stop dead in my tracks
"What we do doesn't define who we are."
Now, she said this to the girl who defined herself as a swimmer, then as a student government nerd in high school. I defined who I was by what I was involved in. While I don't regret viewing my high school years like that, I finally understand why I haven't been happy these past few months. As soon as I lost my student government position and my swim team captain title, I didn't have anything to define myself. I've gotten involved in a lot in college and I love the organizations that I am a part of, but I didn't feel that same passion that I did for student government or swimming. I think that disconnection is part of growing up and realizing that these organizations don't define me. Which, thanks to Ellie, I can finally understand.
So with this huge realization today, I am left with the oh-so-simple question: Who am I? So simple, right? (That's sarcasm, people.) For now, I'm going to focus on baby steps to figure out the answer to this one. I just had to share my relief and comfort in the fact that I have finally begun to understand the high school to college changes... about time, right?