Who Am I?

A friend of mine asked me this recently and it's something to ponder.

She said that I was missing. That I wasn't my normal self. Something was wrong and it was him.

"You're not like the image."

"What image?"

"The confident, cultured, intelligent, well dressed, showy image. You know. The thing you look like online."

And I think about it.

Really really think about it.

This has happened before.

It's happened before several times.

Another voice. Another friend separate from even this one chimes in saying that she enjoys my weird. She is a beacon in a very scary desolate place.

"I can't even imagine what you're going through. It is unfathomable."

And she's not the only one but at least hers was showing empathy. Others have said similar but added.

"I don't even want to think about what that's like."

Because it's easier to navigate that way. In an indifferent world where it's just quiet and no one is looking. In a world where the neighbor probably heard screaming but did nothing. Where are the problems? Where are the beginnings and where are the endings?

But that's another story. Yet another story in a story that probably should be written about as well.

I think about how much this used to be me. About how I was vibrant and had a fire in my eyes a long time ago. About how sought after that is.

Who am I?

I think about the fire. I think about the taming. I think about everything that I thought I knew and realized I didn't.

I miss me.

I miss me so much.

I've begun to wonder if it's ever going to be ok or not. If I am ever going to truly be welcome to exist as me and not just some version someone else tells me to be.

If vulnerabilities that I've been told are brave will be validated as brave.

And then there are moments when they are.

Messages from unexpected places.

"You are truly cutting-edge impressive. You're sexy because you're courageously different. My guess is a lot of guys are intimidated by you, because f your inner strength and outer beauty."

These are the things that my friend spoke about. That image. That fire. That sense of knowing and pose and voice and fearlessness. And this message was actually from someone who was in waits to become a federally appointed judge... or so he claimed. He wanted to validate me and "be dominated" by my presence. It was curious that this person.. this stranger... noticed something in me that found me to be something to look up to. 

Where am I?

Who am I?

There once was a person from my past way back in my days in San Diego. He was another artist who I had a brief relationship and connection with way back when I was a young mother trying to find the answers. During those days he drafted a scribble that is in a book with the pictures of me in that white London Fog coat and soft white embroidered leather gloves that showed a path that went up and down and in a straight line. It was a cone of care. It was a cone of progress. The further that someone got from one part, the further away they were from the other. Lest they stay the line and not go up or down on the cone.

Where am I?

Who am I?

I'm miles away from that person that I knew some days.

I'm miles away from the opposite on other days.

Some days I am content with being the me I want to be.

Other days I fear it.

Other days the fear takes so much hold of me. I urge others to be cautious. It makes them feel safe. Fear is safety in it's own realm. At the same time, that's not where I ever want to live.

Tomorrow is going to mark a hard difficult day. It's going to mark the start of a trial for my sister's killer. The man that killed my sister's voice. The man that destroyed not only her inside emotional confidence but her entire existence on more than even just that figurative plane.

I want to be me again. I want to be the me I remember. And more so, I want it to be ok to be that me. 

I want to exist again. I want to exist more than anything. It's strangely ironic how people think I've been suicidal when it was and is quite the opposite. I want to be me. Silly, vibrant, cutting-edge impressive, confident, sexy, intelligent, bold, cultured, well dressed me. On this day if Independence, I'm putting that intention out there. No matter what the cost is.. I need to be the whole I once was again.