Meltdown
I called it my identity crisis.
A friend simply called it my meltdown. Whatever it was, it wasn't
fun.
I forgot Who I Am. Or maybe I
didn't forget. Maybe Who I Am changed on me. All I know is, for
about a week, I got lost.
Now, I wasn't seriously lost.
I could still laugh at Mike's jokes and giggle with John over
triffles. I wasn't all tragic, although I was a little mopey.
I simply lost myself. I kept saying that I felt like a 14-year-old
again.
Who am I? What's the point of
all this? What the heck do I think I'm doing? Why is everything
so hard? Why? I started to remember snippets of poetry that I
had written as a teenager: "The world is a void. Who is there
to ease the pain?" (I didn't say it was GOOD poetry!)
How do I define myself? I refuse
to believe that I am only defined by the roles I play: Mother. Friend.
Counselor. Daughter. Partner. Writer.
Each of these labels only defines
a small arc in the circle that I am. A friend of mine said, "You
know, sometimes we try to put God in a box. And just when we manage
to define God and It fits nicely inside of the box, there's a
tap on our shoulder & God says, "Hey, I'm over here.
Who's that in the box?"
There's an awesome song by Brian
Harris that says, "I forgot the truth about me again. I forgot
that I'm a perfect child of God."
The reason that none of those
labels work for me is that they do not even come close to defining
the Truth of me. I have discovered that true freedom is mine when
I stop trying to define and simply accept. I am a perfect child
of God.
I have to admit that freedom
is a lot scarier than I thought it would be. Why is it that whenever
I get what I think I want it turns out different than I thought
it would?
So now what? How do I get back
to that place where I was confident, happy, secure? Well, I'm
aware that on my path, there's no going back to where I was, there's
only forward movement. So I guess that I have to get really clear
about where it is that I'm going.
It's time to allow a deeper level
of trust -- trust in God, trust in my process, trust in the world's
process.
So here goes: Okay, God. I've
tried ignoring You, I've tried using You, I've tried serving you.
None of those have worked out so well for me. So how about I just
abandon myself to You and let You figure all this out?
After all, You probably can't
make quite such a mess of it as I have.
©
Copyright 2004-2006 Shelly WAlker, All Rights Reserved