Just Me

I don't know who I am.  I've been marinating on the idea for weeks now.  I thought about who or what other people think I am.  I thought about who I used to be.  I thought about who I want to be.  I even asked someone and they said, "You are a child of God."  I don't think she liked my response much.  I said, "How does that differentiate me from any other person on the planet?"

I told Keith, "I'm above average at nearly everything, but not outstanding at anything."  I'm stuck by that proverb that says something like Your true character is how you act when nobody is looking.  Well, when nobody is looking I can be lazy, sloppy, ornery, selfish, and a whole host of other things.  Truth is, I wonder who I would be if nobody ever looked.

Does everyone lose themselves in their forties?  Do they think whatever beauty they had is gone?  Do they realize  they've already forgotten half of what made them smart?  Do they wonder if they will ever amount to anything?  Probably.

I don't like some of who I am--mostly the parts that I see reflected back on me from my kids.  All the things they learned from me when I wasn't teaching.  The sarcasm and the disrespect.  That is all me.  The questioning everything.  The fault-finding.  Also me.

There are parts of me I sorta like.  I like that I have a hard time not telling the truth.  I like that I'm okay with taking responsibility when things don't go  perfectly.  I like that I don't give up on things. 

Maybe it's fine to want to be someone else part of the time, as long as I want to be me the other part.  If only I knew which.  Which me and which part of the time.