Do you own it?

Own who you are.

This past summer, I wasn't sure how I'd do in my rotation.
Kids were my thing. Older adults were Jonathan's.
He's gifted with that crew.

All our older adult professors have this "older adult personality," as do a lot of the girls who want to go into working with that age group.
It's everything that I'm not.
A bit timid, overwhelmingly sweet, with kindness and empathy being dominant qualities. And soft-spoken.
Now, I don't think that I'm the antithesis of these qualities, and empathy happens to be one of my strengths,
But I also don't think that those are the first words that pop into peoples' head to describe Joyce.

Also, how would old people feel about a young'un coming in and teaching them how to do things with no life experience? With a generation gap? Would I be able to relate to them?

I stuck to my guns. I could go in there and try to be someone (older adult personality) that I'm not. But why not try to stay authentic with them, too? And instead of dreading the implications of your youth, own it. Own your youth. Own your strengths.

This worked out quite well. You know what? Person after person went into my patient's rooms with that older adult personality. That warmth has a wonderful impact. But so does laughter! And so we laughed often and much in between education and exercise!

One Monday when I was walking down the hall with my instructor, a nursing assistant stopped me and said "Thank you a lot. You made one of my patients cry this weekend." I was terrified that I had done something wrong. "Oh really? Why?! What did I do wrong?" "No. She just really wanted to say goodbye to you, so I promised I would for you. She really loved working with you."

I remember my time with her, and how in pain she was. We had to get her out of bed, though. Just getting to the edge of the bed was hard for her post-surgery. I had evaluated her the day before and met her daughter and husband, so there was a level of comfort there. We got her to the edge.

"You're one tough bird. Your husband is a lucky dude!"

Her husband (probably over 80, too) and daughter cracked up in the corner.
To me, that's an example of what happens when you own who you are instead of trying to be someone else.
Instead of youth being a barrier, it was a facilitator of therapy. She and her husband felt hip during my sessions! :)
I will say that my humor is also always very professional and gradual (crack a joke and see how they respond), because ultimately, the patients needs for that hour trump mine.
But me not losing who I am is also important, and I don't think those two are necessarily mutually exclusive.

I know a time will come where I need to remind myself to be who I am. Own who I am. Don't hide it. No one has time for that. And it's essentially masking my gifts to try to have someone else's.

I heard this quote once. "Find the people who accept you for you. Don't change to be someone they'll accept."

The reason everyone doesn't do this is that it can be so hard, but it's also so worth it. Friends aren't always flocking to you. The ones that do, though, make it so worth it.

And for my own quote, "I'm tired of thinking whether I should be like you or you should be like me. I'm just going to be like me and be the best me that I can be."

Now for a MO-bama quote:
"It's just like 'how do I feel about people not getting who I am?' I just keep being who I am, and one day, you know, they'll see really who I am if I'm being true, if I'm being authentic, which is all I can do, then people will get it. There will always be people who will be disappointed. There will always be people who will won't like you. There's nothing I can really do about that."