Keep your identity small

and your curiosity BIG.

That’s me. Circa 1995

When I was a kid I was a rhythmic gymnast. I was on the US national team, trained a lot, traveled a lot, had 1996 Atlanta Olympic dreams, and retired at the ripe age of 16. I was burnt out and ready to be done. What I was not prepared for was how melancholic and ungrounded I would feel for years after. And not because I missed it. But because that was who I thought I was. My whole childhood identity was wrapped up in rhythmic gymnastics. And then that identity was gone.

My husband had a different experience during those growing up years. He did nothing “organized” until track in high school. But there were interesting kayaking trips with his dad and uncle, learning how to play the guitar from a Led Zeppelin tab book, getting interested in white water kayaking and climbing. He majored in biology, got a masters degree in education, and became a middle school science teacher. He was great at it. During his summers off from teaching he sought out interesting experiences. One year he got a summer job at the mall at Abercrombie & Fitch purely because he’d never had a job in retail and wanted to see what it was like. Another summer he went to EMT school. He “retired” from teaching at 26, packed up his Subaru and drove to Lake Tahoe with no pre-arranged job or place to live. He ended up staying for two years teaching snowboarding and tutoring. He returned to Seattle for a PhD program, took a leave after a year and a half, and started doing real estate photography, which evolved into interiors photography and also making art.

This “follow your curiosity” path is kind of like our House Culture now. And while it seems like my husband really had this dialed his whole life, looking back now I can see when my shift started to happen my second year of college. I got a job as a barista because I thought it might be interesting and it was! This was before a printed drink order existed and we weren’t allowed to use a Sharpie and write on the cups like Starbucks was doing. If you were at the bar making drinks, you’d call back the order out loud to the cashier and then have to keep track of the order, milk preference, and if it was for “Steve.” On a busy morning sometimes I’d have more than 8 blank cups on deck but I knew what each one was going to be. It was interesting learning how to do that.

I didn’t know what I wanted to major in but I loved all of my art history classes so I took more of them. I ended up leaving the coffee shop for an admin job at a small law firm and learned how to file and manage casework and eventually ended up assisting the bookkeeper. My junior year I didn’t re-enroll at the university and instead took interior design classes at a local community college. A year later I went back to the university and finished my degree in art history, which I never planned to “use” but I decided getting my degree in something I was interested in was reason enough.

After college I worked at the front desk of a real estate office, which led to getting my real estate license and being an assistant to a very busy agent.

A few years later I took a private classical Pilates lesson. That one hour session transported me back to when I was a kid and reminded me of all the things I loved about rhythmic gymnastics—feeling connected to my body. Moving with joy and rhythm. It felt like speaking my native language after living in a foreign country for a decade. I went home and told my now-husband “This is what I want to do.” Two months later I had quit my job and started my year-long classical Pilates apprenticeship. That was 17 years ago.

While I love what I do and the bulk of my time, energy, and thoughts are about my work and my clients, it does not define who I am. I don’t identify as a Pilates teacher. I am just someone who’s curious about how the body works and finds great joy in teaching and helping others. Having that perspective allows me to expand my thinking. Instead of doubling down on more Pilates-specific continuing ed, I’m more interested in learning about neuroscience, plyometrics, improving motor control and on and on. All of these things enrich the core of what I do. Not just Pilates.

My son is almost 13. He’s got an incredible gift for music, the type that really WOWS you. As a parent it’s easy to project and wonder what he will “do” with it in the future. But what I hope most for him is to take that part of himself and the tools he has and follow his curiosity—try new things, keep his mind open, and re-think often. And allow himself to change his mind at any stage on the path, to anchor his sense of self not in some pre-defined easily categorized identity, but in a broad curiosity of the world.

From Adam Grant’s Think Again:

“A hallmark of wisdom is knowing when it’s time to abandon some of your most treasured tools—and some of the most cherished parts of your identity.”