That's the Fun Part!

Who am I? Who am I going to be when I grow up? How do I define/describe myself? In my life, these are paralyzing questions. According to a beloved religious leader (I'm afraid I can't remember exactly who), these are not questions that young people, or old people, ought to be asking. He said something to the effect of not needing to guess or wonder who we are because we know we are children of God. However, as lovely as that sounds, in this world, in this life, I still find myself wondering what it means to be a child of God. What does that mean I do? What does that look like? I need practical application! When I'm introducing myself to a class or meeting someone else for the first time, I'm once again at a loss of what to say. Is being a child of God enough?
So, I went on a search, a personal study of "who I am" and I am here today to share with you what I have noticed and observed about myself.

I want to begin, with the ending. Last year I drew a perspective piece for a school assignment. The goal was to learn how to handle perspectives in artwork and I took a very Esther-like approach to the assignment. I created a "system" I had to follow to produce a set of results. In my case, it was a series of steps I used to create a base of lines on the page. Once I had my lines drawn the real perspective work began. Rules of the drawing? I could not use an eraser. A line, once drawn, was drawn forever. Other than that my job was merely to see connections or images in the base lines that I would draw on top of and use to create structures. How like life this is.
But lets get back to why I'm talking today about identity.

I'm taking a public speaking class in school and the first assignment was to introduce myself using three objects in three minutes. In preparation for my speech, I started running everything I think I am through my mind. I am a musician, an animal lover, a seamstress, an artist, a poet, a math tutor, a stellar organizer, a paperclip collector, a t-shirt designer... and I'm brutally honest. Honest to the point that when I was trying to write the speech I couldn't say I was a musician because I hadn't picked up my violin in over a year. I couldn't tell people I taught math because I wasn't confident enough in my current mathematic memory to be willing to tutor anyone. And I couldn't say I was a fantastic organizer because my apartment was fair proof against that. Suddenly, "who I was" crumbled before my eyes. I wasn't anything anymore! In one world shattering moment I began doubting everything. And as my world, my perception, shattered I realized something I'd never been able to verbalize before.

What if I'm a poet who now wants to try horseback riding? What if I'm an organizer who lives in a mess? What if I'm a violinist who prefers playing piano? The real question is: so what? So what if I've done one thing in the past and now want to do another thing? All that we are does not, in fact, cannot manifest at once. I was afraid of being a hypocrite because I'm a math tutor who can't remember math or a musician who doesn't currently play an instrument. But! Who we are is a very fluid concept. I think fluidity is something we've forgotten. I was trying to define myself for the rest of eternity, but that is an impossible task! I was paralyzed because I was afraid that what I said today would determine who I was forever. What a journey stopping, path blocking, feet dragging thought that was! Who I am is not based on who I have been or what I am doing currently, it is completely based on who I choose to be today--right now. And tomorrow, who I am is determined by what I choose tomorrow. Today I am choosing to be a blogger. Tomorrow I might be a very dedicated college student. The day after that I might be a very lax college student. On Sunday I will likely choose to serve and devote my afternoon to visiting and meetings whilst on Wednesday I might focus solely on myself. What does that fluctuation mean about me? I could answer that question with more undefinable terms. I could say it means I'm human, or it means I'm imperfect, or it means I have a varied set of circumstances in my life. All those and much more would be true, but the clearest definition is that - I am. I am not okay and I am doing just fine. I am having a fantastic experience and I am having a hard moment. I am cheerful and I am heartbroken. All in the same day.

I'm coming to realize that life is like a choose your own adventure book. As circumstances change you adapt to meet them. My family often relates life to a pendulum in that we have to swing from one extreme to another before finding balance in the middle. But what if you weren't actually supposed to find the middle? What if you got to go through life choosing where on the pendulum you wanted to be? Coming back to this drawing, sometimes the choices don't pan out the way we expect. Sometimes we try something, we draw a line, and only discover afterward that we really aren't as interested in it as we thought we'd be. Sometimes we really wish we had an eraser. Oftentimes we hold ourselves back from new adventures saying we "aren't that sort of person" or "don't have the right personality." But what if we tried it? What if we drew an unexpected line? What if we chose our next path to be down a new road and then discovered that we loved it? Everything you do is creating a base line in your life, a base from which a more complete you can be born. The truth is, the more I come to accept my life in the ever swinging pendulum, the more I realize that I love it! I would hate finding the center "balanced" part of that pendulum. The joy of this drawing is the unexpected, unplanned aspect. The chance I have to choose my own adventure. Life is really messy. But deciding what or who you're going to be in the middle of a messy moment, well, that's the fun part!