How do you find yourself when you never got to discover who you were in the first place?
What if your whole identity was shaped by being something, fulfilling a role through which you defined yourself - daughter, girlfriend, mother, wife?
How do you find yourself when the only "you" you knew was the one that was shaped by those roles?
I was good at those roles...well...at least I thought I was.
"Be good and do what you're told."
"Keep them happy."
"Keep them fed and happy. Love them. Keep them alive. Listen to them"
"Keep him happy."
What happens when slowly, bit by bit, those roles are no longer required, needed....or even wanted; and you find that bit by bit, day by day, a little more of who you thought you were is eroded until there's absolutely nothing left and you're left standing with empty hands and sometimes an empty head that echoes with the question, "What now?"
Go out and find yourself.
But who am I looking for? What's she like? Will I like her? I hope I will!
Who is she now that there's nothing left and she has to start again from scratch?
So....she starts. In the silence of her empty house she starts. Well...she did start with an empty house and slowly started to fill it with pre-loved things that she makes her own.
She creates things with her hands, filling the empty rooms with beautiful, colourful things that are an expression of who she is.
She eats when she wants and as little or as much as she likes.
She watches movie after move, episode after episode one after the other just because she can and there's no one there to question it.
Her sewing machine lives permanently on the kitchen table. It's on no one's way but hers. Pins, scissors, fabric and cotton litter the room at times, evidence of the creative process. Her heart burns with excitement of creating without the constraints of time. Her knitting needles are always on the go, especially during the winter months, as she creates scarves and hats for those she loves. Thoughts of selling her creations flit through her mind from time to time...
She shares of herself when she wants to share and remains silent when she can't - until she goes to her safe place where she can finally let it all out story by story until the telling is done. She doubts if the telling will ever be done. In that safe place there are no judgments or recriminations; just an ear that listens, one that doesn't care what she says. She can say what she needs to say in that room and no one cares....well....there is care but it's care with a purpose, not the care of involvement.
She wonders if she is finding herself or if she is simply just ridding herself of all the baggage she has expected herself to carry while she was fulfilling all those roles. She realises that it doesn't matter. She gets the feeling that once the baggage is gone she can truly begin.
A beginning can start at any time, she discovers - even when you've lived over half your life already.
She hasn't quite found herself as yet. In fact, she doesn't even think she's close. She is content to be on the journey. Who knows? Maybe she will find herself right at the very end.
