The New Soul

Some people are old souls. You can tell from when they’re young. They’re intuitive and smart, empathetic and understanding. They just seem to know things about the world. They just seem to get it. They make the right choices. They have good gut instincts. They’re talented. They embody the ancestral knowledge of the generations of versions of themselves that came first. 

I’m a new soul. Life has been hard for me. Everything I’ve ever learned has been a brand new revelation. Nothing has ever made sense right away. I’ve approached my entire life with unwavering optimism and have fallen hard every single time the rug has been pulled. I’ve never seen it coming, despite repeated experiences. Because I’m new here. It’s my first life.

Growing up, I balanced multiple cultures and two languages while absorbing as much from the people on television as I could, in order to pretend to fit in in the real world. I had no pop cultural knowledge. The Beatles? Had never heard of them. And I gotta say, now that I have, I still don’t really get what all the hype was about. I’m sorry. I know that’s a controversial thing to say. Everything before the 90s when I grew up blurs together. Blame it on my lack of previous life experience, I do.   

In high school, when it was time to figure out where our lives were headed, other kids had ideas. They knew the path to become teachers because their moms and aunts were teachers. They knew how the Canadian university system worked because their siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents had gone through it. Or they had fallback plans because their uncles were firefighters or bank executives, or their dad owned a well established construction company. Everyone had all these connections to help guide them. I had none of it. While my classmates knew people in high places, my family literally didn’t know anyone in any place. I was the one forging ahead figuring it all out. 

I never went to the “right” places. The ones everyone else always seemed to know about. The right banks, the right dentists, the right driving school were all a mystery to me. Everyone always seemed to go in one direction, while I was wandering aimlessly down a different route, never running into anyone I knew. I was always separate from the norm, not always by choice, often just by my novel circumstances.

My parents come from two different countries, and when you go back far enough their families were migrants too. We have no firm routes anywhere. I wasn’t named after an incredible ancestor, my parents picked my name because they liked it. My brother chose my middle name after a television character. My last name is so dispersed throughout the world, it doesn’t necessarily belong anywhere. My mother’s maiden name barely even exists. Distortions and changes.

If I were to do a DNA test, I’m positive I would just come up as fractions of a bunch of different races, a mix so unique, it only exists in me. I don’t have warm or cool skin. My neck doesn’t match my face with or without makeup, and my chest even less so. I don’t have straight or wavy hair. I have both. I have it all. I am everything, and I am nothing. I’m mixed in every which way, a blending of peoples; externally and internally.

I suspect that when my genetic code came through the factory, there was no existing soul willing to step into what would eventually become my body. No soul prepared to undertake the unique being that I would become. That must be why I’m new.

And I’ve done a bad job of it. Figuring it all out. I am timid and naïve, and like I said, lacking natural proclivities. I’ve taken minimal chances and made very small strides. I’ve missed chances and opportunities because I just didn’t know. I still don’t know.

So please bear with me, as I continue to stumble through life for this very first time. I’ve got nothing to base it on and everything to learn. If I ever get to come back for a second go around, I think I’ll do a much better job. 

2022

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