I am, I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
I am, I cried
I am, said I
And I am lost, and I can't even say why
~Neil Diamond I Am I Said
A few years ago, I was speaking on the phone with an old friend from jr high school. She was a year younger than I, and she remarked how she was always jealous of how confident and together I was, as was my best friend, a year older than I. My first impulse was to laugh maniacally until I could only cry. Me, in the 8th grade, was one serious hot mess. I muttered a thank you, I think, and marveled on perspective.
Awkward, vulnerable, moody, secretive, hostile, child in a woman's body, all the characteristics of a 13-14 year old girl, plus both remarried parent's marriages having growing pains. The parent I lived with during the week, my Dad, his second marriage was having death throes. I became a real feminist that year, and never looked back. The boys didn't quite know how to take the tom-boy girl they grew up with morphing into a newly minted butterfly. I struggled to answer that who am I question.
Who I am has evolved, devolved, soared and plunged, sometimes in the same day, since I was 14 and trying to discern who, what and where. Now I understand being comfortable in my own skin. I have survived those adult milestones of losing my parents, an unexpected retirement, cancer, disability, rearing children to adulthood. Now we do the two-step dance of discerning our marital roles in the empty nest days. I never get to stay comfortable in that skin. I get that old time feeling, the pull of servant leadership again. I wish to hide, like Jonah, and bargain like Burt Reynolds in the movie, "The End". God just pooh-poohs me with a wave of his fingers, and says go right on out of your comfort zone, bring some light to those in darkness, feed my sheep. I grumble, roll over and clamp the pillows on my head. Send me to something easy, okay? No drug addicts, homeless, mentally ill, prisoners, convicts or the dying, okay? I feel that maniacal laugh coming on again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yec4lDknpmg
