Can People Really Change?

I've been thinking about change a lot lately. My life has drastically changed in the last 8 months or so and if you had asked me a year ago if I could imagine being where I am now, I would've laughed in your face.

And I've found myself talking about change to all kinds of people, especially after the sighting of a bumper sticker that said, "Change is inevitable, growth is optional." Love it. But even as I've been sprouting statistics about how you shed about 1.8-2.4 million skin cells an hour and that your skin pretty much renews itself completely in about 35 days (hence, we're always changing), I wonder if it's true. Do people ever really change?

My ex-boyfriend said to me a few weeks ago after what I thought to be a perfectly normal exchange between us, "Who are you?! You're not even close to the same person you were." It was one of those double-edged compliments because I had actually said something really nice. Okay, where do we go from there? Was I really just a bitch when we were together and am a completely changed person now? Am I just able to express myself more openly now that I'm free from the power struggle in our relationship? Was I always a nice person and he just couldn't see it because he was too wrapped up in his own self-judgement to be able to see me? Do people just constantly miss each other completely because we're all too obsessed with ourselves to be able to see other people clearly?

On a theoretically level, the universe is changing all the time. Nothing is ever the same, but the processes just take so much time relative to our lifespan that it all feels the same. I mean, some stars are dead by the time the light has traveled far enough for us to see them. In some cultures, time is circular and not linear, are we just all chasing our tales?

I really want to have some incredibly deep and meaningful answers to this question, but I just don't. On some level, I want to believe House (as in the TV show) and just believe that people don't change- that they lie and adapt their behavior but are actually incapable of change. But in my experience, I realize that I've changed, my friends have changed, life changes all the time. I can barely keep up with the changing that's happening around me right now.

I guess if I were forced to to put it simply, I believe that it's all true. There's a certain part of us that don't change; call it your soul, your true self, your ego, whatever, but there is something in us that stays the same. But it's our ability to let that shine out that changes with time and space. I know it's super yogi and corny, but I really believe that the work for all of us is to tap into real honesty and let ourselves be who we are.