I've come to the realization that identity is a fragile thing. Who we are, what we are, the small things that we define ourselves with are a lot like calculus or economics. The second we figure out where a single point of a curve is on the graph, time moves, and the point is lost. Such is the case with identity and certainty. Calculus and trigonometry stop being such, and instead become life, centered about what should be and what happens with life gets in the way.
I apologize for not writing for a while... I've lost myself. As soon as I try to find some sort of constant in my life, something that I can rely or depend on, I find myself uproot, stripped bare, by my own doing sometimes, and I try to find something to grasp onto in order to survive. Something to root myself in.
And so... it is time to delve into my theories again.. to try and expand and hone my formula in order to stay true to myself. I uttered those words again: "I don't like a single thing about myself." That was a cop out to myself, and I know it.
So it's time to ask myself, "Who am I?"
I know these things about myself: I am alive. I am competent. I am literate. I am sensitive. I am curious. I am paranoid. I am spiritual. I am cocky. I am musical. I am a soul, a mind, a heart. I am an orator, of sorts. I am knowledgeable. I am imaginative. I am particular. I am aware. I am enough by myself.
Everything I had written up to that last sentence I know and believe about myself. I have a lot to offer... but not enough to offer myself. What is it that I am in need of for myself?
I know I need these things: companionship, comfort, motivation, strength, hope, love, power, belief, determination, honor, respect, certainty.
How can I supply these things to myself? A lot of my friends/readers may suggest that I read the bible. In time, maybe I will be able to, once I get over my unsettling irritation with it. I know that the bible has a lot to teach me, and that I would be a fool to not at least look at it, but I have my own issues to conquer about the bible first... [It's about time that I deal with them, however... I've got to stop procrastinating.]
But I will figure a way to administer these treatments to myself. In a way that allows me to endure more than I have before. Such is to live, is it not?
Thanks for the honesty. Just this week I was wrestling with the infuriating recurring thought that "I am NOT enough!" It's interesting that when I read your line, "I am enough by myself," it struck me as a bit of self-deception. Who could ever be enough? Who says we're supposed to be? Would we even WANT to be? Somehow, though I talk to myself about my own insufficiency in a condemning tone, I can recognize the hollowness of the whole enough-ness enterprise in another soul. Hypocrisy. Humanity.
ReplyDeleteI cling, in my better moments, to the paradox of His strength made perfect in my weakness. To the promise that He is enough. When I have the strength to raise the glass, I drink to the reality that it is no longer I who live, but He who lives in me, and that together, in a much deeper way than my trumped-up ego pretends, we are enough.
Bennie! :D
ReplyDeleteNice to have you on my site :)