Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Real Me!

Ever look into the mirror and wonder whom the stranger is staring back at you? Usually this is after a major life event or traumatic experience. Life seems to create in us this quandary as to who we are and what our purpose should become.

I have always been an independent, stable woman with a career I love and a zest for life and living. However, when I look in the mirror I no longer see that woman. Oh I get glimpses of her here and there, but the general essence of who I was is veiled. It isn’t that I am a totally different person; it is that those aspects of who I am, which I found familiar, seem absent. I find this disheartening, or should I?

Just because the person staring back at me in the mirror is unfamiliar, doesn’t mean she is unwelcome. It simply means I need to become comfortable with her again. I need to explore what makes her tick—how she lives, makes decisions---how she loves and how she takes on life.

We evolve and change constantly. Life events and circumstances influence this change. I am not the same person I was before I was a mother. That experience molded me. I am not the same person I was before I experienced great loss, that event has shaped who I have become.

As I work through this process of re-acquaintance, I am not sure if I become more content with who I am or if it is that I begin to understand myself better and thus begin to accept and even become fond of this “new me”. I believe it becomes a choice.

I refuse to lose my sense of self. I refuse to allow this unfamiliarity to create within me insecurities that are cause for rash decisions or a sense of uncertainty. On the contrary, I embrace this new person and realize she is a collection of her experiences both past and present and is being fashioned to move forward into the “chapter two” of her life with a newfound appreciation for the outcome of life’s experiences.

This I know for sure…..mostly!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do not get mad...listen me to the end...HOGWASH! The same qualities you list as the woman you were are the qualities that have brought you to this point today. I would even suggest that instead of veiled that it is more exposed. I have never seen you to be more of what you think is masked.

Your laughter still brings roars of joyous thunder from my spirit. Your guttyness (sp) reveals itself in the help you have been to so many others...even your mother and myself. Perhaps the reason you do not see yourself as the other person is because you have allowing God to bring out qualities that make you a more complete woman, mother, teacher, daughter and God forgive me "lover" (in a qualified and I do mean qualified meaning).

Had I had the experiences you have had these past months, I could only hope I would be the "man" you are (I would not want to be the "woman" you are). Oh, well, what ever I mean.

Take great pride and look in the mirror again and see if you do not see a more complete self that God is developing in you.

So...HOGWAS...what ever that means. Love you the way you were and the way you are.

Marsha said...

Well Dad,
How could I possibly get mad--especially after what you wrote so eloquently? It gives me hope and brings clarity as I read through your thoughts. Perhaps who I am has little to do with me---and everything to do with my genetics---