Another busy, wonderful weekend for us. You are now at Daddy’s. I sit here writing memories for you. I am currently out of work and our budget is tight, but we are going to be just fine. You are taking swimming lessons. We have had some fun afternoons playing football. Visiting friends needs to be more a part of our agenda. Greg has been a part of our life for the past few weeks. That part is not going to work out. I feel like he does not understand what I am trying to do with you. Not many people do. Now-a-days raising children in a loving, patient environment is not what many people do. Greg certainly is not one of them. That is too bad. But your moma is not one to let people be impatient with you. I do not care who it is. I love you both. Please be strong.
Weird, I know. It’s my own sort of code, “Ha!, Hmmm?)” Whatever. You have had a couple of good days. We had Parent Conference a couple of nights ago and you guys were great. Your teachers are all so happy with you. Emma, you are truly becoming – you fight it, but everyone is so happy with you. Drama, writing in Humanities, you got physics credit or some such thin – and math – Wow-Algebra 2 next year. But you fight it. I let your teachers know you didn’t want to go there next year, but it is not an option. I think you feel better. Brandon, you don’t know it yet, but Syd said you got picked by the actor guy…from your rehearsal. We’ll see if they follow through – That’s what she whispered in my ear. In the meantime, you two are doing well with each other. Love Mom.
You probably at this point are wondering what Milton’s role or Nancy’s role are in my life. They are both in it, but how, to what degree, and why? The truth is that they probably feel they are more in my life than I give them room for. The truth to me is that I’ve never, thus far, felt my life and future belonged to any one partner. To this very moment my life belongs to the two of you – no one else. I do desire someone in my life – “fantasy” would have someone phenomenal, amazing, magical. At this moment in my world there is no one that works that way. Milton makes CD’s and boxes, and jewelry. Nancy is humble, honest, predictable. Anyone else would have some other find quality to them. The “truth” reality, sadness of it all is that now one impresses me. My feeling is that we are in a good place at this moment. I do, at times, wonder what if…when I remember/think of Hector. But… And that is the standard. Don’t do this when you grow older and more “jaded”. Live, Love, ad Enjoy every person you are with, when you are with them. And move on. Everyone you meet will have something to offer you. You loved ones will have something you can take with you. Don’t dwell on what you didn’t get. This is always easier said than done. But it is necessary.
It has been a long week and it certainly was a long day. You both had your presentations today and you performed with flying colors. Your teachers are all incredibly pleased with you all/both, and I am excited for you. Em, I have shared with you that I think, after all that has happened, that you are afraid of success. The more I watch and listen the stronger this impression becomes. I cannot help but begin yet on a new mission to help guide you through if in fact we find this to be true. It is my new theory given the fact that on the one hand you show growth, express excitement, share new learning, glow over but yet you claim unhappiness with no known source and a desire to leave. I can’t help to wonder if you want to escape all the positive growth because you are afraid to succeed. How do I help[?] Brandon, you are showing growth through leadership. You turned in your first job application, you are conducting for Maggie, leading boys dance teams, and hopefully, recognizing that you have gifts to share, you both do, and it should be a goal, a mission, to do that. Our purpose in life should be to leave where you’ve been a better place. Touch it with your gifts and leave your magic. I will leave you very little, but I hope it’s quality will last beyond a lifetime.
This day was a holiday. According to the journal entry, we didn’t do much and I felt it was a “taskless day”, lost without routine and something to keep us grounded.
These we’re sort of my guides, my go to’s. The one not listed, didn’t need to be at the time because it was already a part of my mental constitution -Be a person of integrity, no matter how difficult.
Sometimes, in order to find oneself, we have to shed the layers of others that we have taken on. It’s complicated. But not really.
Are we not the sum of all of our parts? And do our parts not included parts of others? How then, do we find who we really are – at our core?
When we’re born, we can be anything that we want to be – minus the limitations placed on us due to physical or mental handicaps. The remaining limitations are placed on us by those around us, our parents, our leaders and mentors, our society, our culture, our friends, lovers, spouses.
If we are lucky, we are either born with a strong spirit and a will and determination that drives us to achieve and be our best or we are fortunate enough to find someone that helps us see our ultimate potential and encourages us to strive. If we are not, look around and you’ll see much of what is wrong with society, any society – industrialized, civilized, uncivilized, first world, third world, “fake” world. We end up becoming what someone makes of us. Perhaps we become guerilla children in a nation fighting for “freedom from the oppressor”. We grow up believing that the other person is the enemy, no matter the color of his skin. Sometimes the color is the same. Perhaps we grow up hiding behind window shades and dark curtains afraid to look outside because someone told us that outside was dangerous. Or maybe, we find comfort in becoming. Becoming whatever someone wants us to be, until. What happens when that someone decides that our becoming isn’t enough? What happens when we wake up one day and discover that becoming isn’t enough? What then?
Where do we begin to piece ourselves together? What is ourself? One day you wake up you look in the mirror and you do not recognize the face that is looking back. Maybe you just find yourself crying for no dam reason. Maybe you automatically go through old routines only this time you don’t even remember that you went through the motions. You need to stop. Just stop. Stop and look back at that person in the mirror and stare. Stare into her eyes (or his) and take one minute to say, “hello”. Maybe, just maybe, take a moment to listen to the person that answers back. Who we were born, that majestic individual that rose from an egg and sperm, is in there. All you have to do is find her. But how? Take a minute. Take a minute and realize that part of the reason you don’t recognize who is looking back at you is because the skin you’re in is not yours. It’s whose ever skin it was you needed to be until you needed to find your own. And now, now you need to shed his skin.
Where to begin? Think back, as far back as you need to think to remember what you wanted to be when you were five or six. Think back to remember at whom you stared at because she was beautiful, amazing, awe inspiring. How did she dress? Classy, simple, ostentatious? What color was her hair? Did she style it? Did she wear it down? Was it short? Long? What color lipstick did she wear? Now, find the pieces of that awe inspiring person that fit you, and begin to replace the pieces you need to shed with parts of a new you. What next? Listen. Listen to the voice inside your head – it’s the universe talking. It’s saying, “the answer is right there, all you have to do is listen.” Steal moments to listen. Five minutes, ten minutes, thirty seconds. Silence the noise outside and listen. Sometimes silencing the noise means making louder noise or changing the noise or listening to noise that is slightly lower than the voice inside. How can you hear it? You’ll hear it. The moment isn’t working. Then try harder, force it. Finding yourself sometimes is like looking at a piece of wood or a ball of clay or a blank canvas and asking it, “what do you want to be? how shall I shape you?” And then, you sit back and you wait to be inspired. Or, you begin, with no idea, no clear picture in your mind. You just begin and slowly your piece of wood or your ball of lay or your blank canvas begin to take shape, and then, you see it. You see a familiar feature, a curvature that reminds you of something, you mix a color and another and another or it takes a life all its own and you allow it to go and see where it takes you.
How do you know what his skin and what’s yours? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can move comfortably in it and that when you look in the mirror you see more of what you recognize as you than you see of what you became for him. In each of those little pieces of skin from the past there were always pieces of you. That’s how you were able to survive. Those are the ones that will show you the way to yourself. You’ll never be completely rid of who you became. After all, it’s who you became. But you can be comfortable in the knowledge that you decided which parts to keep as your sum and which to discard.
Finding you is not about forgetting and being embarrassed of what once was. Instead, it’s about embracing, owning what once was, welcoming the new you and not being afraid to show it.
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