When the rest of the world appears to be asleep, I find myself standing beneath the canopy of stars that seem to glimmer a bit brighter at this time of year. The air is chiller, sharpening the edges of the shadows that form within the cloak of darkness. I look above, and I wait always for a falling star before I will go back inside.
Yesterday, I wrote about improving as opposed to changing, which set off a train wreck of thoughts throughout my mind in regards to how I would go about improving myself…finding myself lost in the clutter.
I have no idea who I am.
How can I improve upon something that I don’t even know?
There are moments when I think I know who I am not and what I do not want to be. But taking a honest, quiet look deep into myself I came up empty as to who I am. I have a many ideas of who I want to be, I see the person I play everyday in the role of my life…but is that something real?
I look into the mirror and see a mis-mash of positive thoughts, hopes, shame, guilt, dreams, fear, aspirations, beliefs, ideas, wants, desires and feelings reflected into the image of myself.
Who am I?
What inside of me is creating the reflection I paint upon the world at large? Who is it that whispers to me from within, gently nudging my thoughts and propelling me into the actions I display in the daily journey of my life.
When I first got clean it was necessary for me to forget most of what I had learned through life. I don’t particularly know how I did this, but all I knew at the time is what I believed about life offered me no hope for living a life…and I became willing to find another way.
Every idea, concept, belief, situation and circumstance became a challenge to discover more of who I was and more of who I was no longer willing to settle being. I knew that there had to be more, although at the time I had no proof of this. I essentially melted away with my beliefs in order to become flexible enough to re-mold myself into the person I am today…and now I’m not even sure of who that is.
I see myself and think…
I am a daughter.
A sister.
An Aunt.
A liar.
A girlfriend.
A friend.
A sponsor.
A sponsee.
A recovering addict.
A criminal.
A drug addict.
A thief.
An artist.
A writer.
A helper of the people.
Labels that exist solely to form the person I “see” myself as, at the many different points of time that my life is consisted of. What beliefs underly these perceptions I hold of myself that has molded these many aspects of who I believe I am and who I believed I was?
I know that for some time now, more of who I am exists within the positive realm…but I also know and feel that beneath and halfway to the middle of somewhere, exists other aspects of myself I do not have the capacity to yet see. Pieces of me that serve to help me redefine myself as well as parts that exist solely for me to stay lost within myself.
Frustration is what I felt for most of the day.
Stuck. Unsure. Uncertain. Lost.
Questions circled throughout my mind ….
How can I ever become more of anything until I know more of who I am?
How do I figure out who I am?
Is this it?
Is there anything more?
I used to call my sponsor when I would get into one of these frantic, confusing states of mind…shouting and pleading onto her voice mail..
“CALL ME BACK QUICK……..I’M THINKING AGAIN!”
I can, if allowed, drive myself crazy. But I know that crazy keeps me awake and aware; it allows me to keep searching, keep questioning, keep second guessing…it keeps me alive and it keeps me moving forward no matter what.
As I stood outside watching and waiting for a falling star. I started imagining that on one of those little flecks of light that sparkled in the darkness above me. Somewhere amidst all the stars, moons, suns, space dust and galaxies; someone stood much as I myself did, gazing upon the earth as it shone like a star in the darkness of the universe.
Questioning, wondering and watching for the stars to fall from the night…
They would wait much like I did; knowing full well that there is alway a star waiting for it’s moment to shimmer down from the heavens above in a brilliant dance of light for those with the patience, persistence and faith to seek it out.
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