Who Am I?

Who am I? 

Who am I?

The age old question every persons asks about themselves. The question which has so many variable answers it seems to be possibly the most vague question to ever be asked.
Who am I?
The way everyone seems to have to answer this question is dependent upon certain events in their lives, family members, and titles they may have.
Daughter. Wife. Mother. CEO. Business owner. Student. Musician. Redhead. Left handed.
A whole host of adjectives and nouns to describe a person.
But WHO am I?
I could give you the most simple answers about myself, listing accomplishments and accolades, job titles and family names I carry, but who I really am lies deep within me-my character and personality, the things that no one sees, THAT is who I am.
I am afraid, I am anxious, I am kindness, I am love, I am a mask of heartfelt emotions just waiting to be let out, I am passion.
That is who I really I am.
Those are the things that make me who I am today, not my flawed DNA, not my series of successes or failures.
But my will power-my ability to get up every morning, look at myself in the mirror and know that I am someone worth being here.
I have had a plan for my life since I was 12 years old; school, career, family, kids, everything I thought was most important in my life- the things that truly mattered, I knew that I had to have those things to make me a person, to give me identity.
Until they didn't anymore- until one day I woke up and realized that what really mattered was who I was without those things because in time, those things will go away. The only measure of myself as a person was the stuff inside me, the real stuff, the stuff nobody likes to think about or talk about. People are so wrapped up in doing whatever they can to look okay on the the outside, like their lives are figured out, like they've got it all together without a care in the world and on the inside they don't know who they are. They've never met that person. The person that lives inside of them.
And I didn't like that person. That person to me, was broken, was ugly and fearful and WEAK. I am not weak. I have been taught my whole life to be strong, to take the days as they come and that weakness is not an option, yet here I am; stuck looking at a person I knew that I knew very well, and that person was me. And she was weak.
So I spent all my time and my energy strengthening that weak individual, giving her power, making her deal with her anxiety and fear. But also teaching her to be kind, to love unapologetically, to see the best in people, even when the worst is the only part that's showing.

And here I am, successful, passionate, driven toward goals-not because those things somehow give me an identity but because I know WHO I AM and I love every part of that so on this journey, as I continue to chase my dreams and passions- I will never lose the truth of who I am.  And I will be happy, and nothing can ever take that away from me. 

Open Letter to Dad

Dear Dad,
I sat down today and the only person I wanted to talk with was you.  I have missed you.  Your smile, your laugh,  your jokes. Even though I am well into my 20s,  married,  with a full time job,  sometimes a girl just needs her Dad.  And no one else will do.  What would you say to me?  Every once in a while, I sit down with a piece of paper and write out 5 things I would say, to you,  just so that for a second I can pretend like we are still together.  I can pretend like I will finish my work,  jump in my car,  and pull into the driveway and there you'll be,  mowing the lawn, listening to your electric blue iPod. You'll shut off the lawn mower,  and come over to me and ask me about my day-but not before you finish singing out loud (way TOO loud)  the last verse of whatever Alan Jackson song you were just listening to.  And I'll tell you about those five things I wrote down. You'll endure five way too long winded stories as you pour yourself a glass of iced tea and you'll listen.  You'll listen and never complain. You were so good at that. Maybe that's where my love for telling a long story comes from,  because I always new that no matter what,  you would listen until I was all the way finished. Lately,  I have found myself really dwelling on what your advice for my life would be,  and I realized now that I never got a chance to thank you. To thank you for always giving me an audience, for always encouraging me but for also never allowing me to believe that I was better than anyone else. Thank you for teaching me how to appreciate people and my experiences and my background. I owe everything to you.  And I'm sorry, for never telling you that while you were here.  And I miss you. Every year,  I here people tell me that it is going to get easier but to me it is seeming like with each passing year,  it is getting harder to get you out of my head,  everywhere I look I remember a story or a conversation,  I hold onto a memory. And each year it gets harder to grasp that those memories are all I have left. 
With all the love in the world,  from me to you.  
Love,  
Your Little Girl.  💙

Mother(hood) May I

Mother(hood) May I..? 

Of all the things I thought I'd be: a teacher, a photographer,  a business woman,  a singer, an event planner,  a world traveller, a mother was always at the top of my list. Now I know,  some of you more seasoned people in my life are going to tell me that it is much too early on in my life to make claims with such finality and such negativity. "You've got so much more life to live. " "Maybe it just isn't your time. " "Everything happens for a reason,  it will happen someday" Maybe those things are true but I just can't help the weighty feeling of emptiness in my heart and soul.
I watch people everyday living the life I wish I had,  I like pictures and videos on facebook and I entertain jokes about why my husband and I haven't started our own family yet and each of those jokes pierces a deep hole right into the most hurtful and vulnerable places in my heart. Nothing aches more in me than my own desire to be a mother- to bear my own children and to be the one who brings them into this world.  To be the one who suffers from morning sickness, blows up like a balloon hippo and tosses and turns all night long for months on end,  and who eventually spend 20+ hours in the most painful and beautiful experience bringing life to the most precious thing on the planet.
Maybe it is a vanity thing.  To want a child so much that you have forgotten who you are and questioned your worth. So much that you are literally self-conscious about your worth as a woman. I have never been more self conscious in all my life.  Not when I was a chubby 3rd grader with a butch haircut,  or a frizzy-haired middle schooled with braces, not when I flew off to a country with no one I knew. Not ever. 
But now,  I find myself struggling daily with my worth as a human,  a woman,  and mostly as a wife. Does my husband still love me-even though I know my deep desire for a child is reciprocated 10 fold in him? Would his family like me more if I could give them a grandchild or make them aunts/uncles?
I.  AM. STRUGGLING. Who am I?  
I have held my weeping husband through the loss of our first baby and I continue to hold him as many of our family and friends celebrate the joy of the births of their children.  Don't be mistaken,  we are happy for them. And we love our nieces and nephew but we are broken,  scarred by loss of not only one but two babies. Struggling with the realization that the celebration that we are taking part of may very well never be in our future. And these hearts-our hearts-full of so much love may never get the opportunity to love a baby more than we love ourselves. 

So this is where I am, where we are.  And this is where the blog comes from.  Name and all.  Daily,  I have to compartmentalize my thoughts and feelings to make everyone around me more comfortable and this is where I have decided to let it all out.  In order to keep my life living in the light of positive energy.  

Thanks for joining me.