The Characters We Try On — And the Woman We’re Becoming
I recently finished watching the Netflix show The Beast in Me, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. The protagonist spends the whole series seeing herself reflected in the eyes of a man she should have nothing in common with — a cold-blooded murderer.
And yet… something in her recognized something in him.
Not the darkness itself, but the idea that we all carry pieces of ourselves we don’t always want to see.
The beast in me. The beast in you.
What separates us isn’t the instinct — it’s the choices we make with it.
That idea kept tugging at me, because it reminds me of something I’ve thought about for years: the characters we play throughout our lives, and the quiet ways they shape us.
The Versions of Ourselves We Try On
If I look back, I can clearly see the versions of myself I once believed I had to be.
There was a time when I thought I wanted to be a sleek, high-powered businesswoman.
I put on the suit.
I mimicked the language.
I climbed the ladder, trying so hard to become the kind of woman I thought the world would take seriously.
And for a while, I convinced myself it fit — until the anxiety crept in, until the exhaustion settled under my skin, until I finally admitted the truth:
I’m not her.
Not even close.
I’m a simple, creative, plain-Jane girl who feels most like herself with paint under her nails, sunlight on her face, and breathing room in her day. But I don’t diminish the version of me who tried. She was necessary. Trying on that character led me to the life I’m living now — one that fits my skin instead of pressing against it.
Watching My Children Try On Their Own Characters
I see the same instinct in my kids.
They try on characters with such freedom — no shame, no hesitation.
One minute they’re the hero, the next the villain, the next a sidekick with a magic sword. They don’t just pretend; they become the character, acting out the exact dilemmas they see on their shows, right down to the dramatic rescues.
It’s play, but it’s also practice.
They’re learning who they are by trying on who they are not.
Somewhere along the path to adulthood, we lose the playfulness but keep the pattern. We still slip into different characters — we just do it quietly.
The Characters Mothers Imagine for Themselves
There’s a whole inner world mothers rarely talk about:
the other lives we imagine, not because we regret the one we have, but because part of us wants to know who else we could’ve been.
Maybe in a different universe we’re the woman who stayed in the big city.
Or the woman who opened a studio in a tiny coastal town.
Or the version of us who said yes to something wild and no to something safe.
These daydreams aren’t escapes — they’re echoes.
Glimpses of characters we once tried on, or versions of ourselves that still live somewhere inside us.
Because while we’re all wildly different, we’re also deeply similar.
We all sense we contain multitudes.
We all recognize pieces of ourselves in the characters we watch, the stories we love, the women we imagine becoming.
There Is No Protagonist Without the Antagonist
And this brings me back to that Netflix show — to the yin and yang of it all.
You don’t get a protagonist without an antagonist. They create each other. They reveal each other.
The same is true inside us.
We carry the soft, patient, gentle parts — and we carry the restless, frustrated, aching ones too. We carry the woman we are and the woman we thought we’d be.
We carry truth and shadow.
Desire and fear.
Light and grit.
Trying on different characters doesn’t mean we’re lost.
It means we’re growing.
The woman you’re becoming is an accumulation of every version you’ve ever tried to be — even the ones that didn’t fit.
A Gentle Reflection to Take With You
As you move through your week, maybe ask yourself:
Which character am I growing out of?
Which character am I stepping into?
You’re allowed to evolve.
You’re allowed to shed.
You’re allowed to become.
Because every version of you — the suited-up corporate woman, the imaginative little girl, the mother finding her way — has been leading you right here, to the woman you’re becoming now.