There are some questions in the English language that can have multiple meanings. Where are you going? Destination, in life, in exiting an argument, when leaving home to strike out on your own. The meaning of the question becomes highly dependent upon the discussion at hand. Who are you? The question invokes different ideas in each of us. Are you a student? Your mother's son? An adult, child, teenager, mature, immature, professional, exhausted, parent, friend, blue collar, white collar. Perhaps we think of ourselves as organizations we affiliate with or specifically what work we do. A slew of words come to mind just to describe myself. Mother, engineer, veteran, American, Constitutionalist, biker, hiker, yoga enthusiast. Blogger, obviously. Ever loving optimist. Dilettante in my personal life, but consummate professional in my work. Hard worker yet love my lazy days. Emotional, intellectual (again in only a dilettante fashion). Happy overall. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Now think about who you are. What exactly makes up you?
Precursor warning, as usual this blog is, well, about me. You take your golden nuggets from it as it comes.
Recently, I've become an empty nester. Not completely, my oldest is technically living with me again. But for the most part, I'm free to come and go as I please and don't have to worry daily about what my sons are eating, who they are hanging out with, if they need anything. Oh sure, I still worry because I'm a mom, their Mom, but without the daily stress of how I'm going to make sure everything is taken care of for them. They are grown men now, and if I raised them right, then they should get on fine without my daily advice or intervention. They aren't children anymore. They have their own lives, goals and aspirations, and have to be allowed to make their own decisions, mistakes, and successes. When each of them has succeeded in something I definitely have a sense of accomplishment; it really is more of a sense rather than a feeling. The feeling of accomplishment for me is for a job as a parent well done. It's not an empty reward, but the feeling of being needed is no longer there. Their successes define them now, not me.
So now while I'm a mother, it is still my proudest description of myself, I'm all those other things more pronounced. What does that mean? A friend of mine thought I was going through my mid-life crisis when I bought my Dodge Challenger. But it wasn't the first sports car with a big engine I had owned. It was more a representation of who I have always been rather than a momentary lapse in reason that the term "mid-life crisis" implies. I'm pretty sure I'm going through that crisis right now. My dream car, my dream career, my stable life...all the sudden I have the craving to throw caution to the wind, ditch what remaining responsibilities I have and run away. The sensible me, the one that raised three gentlemen on my own, tells this crisis side of me to shut the hell up. Breathe. Don't do anything rash. Be practical. WTH are you thinking? My sons still need advice at times, even maybe a helping hand here and there. The practical me even makes the ever so true argument that I've already done my rash, take off on a whim, impractical run away stunt before. I had my wild moments and prudence had won out after a brief spell.
The part of me going through this crisis has its own arguments. Life is short. The things that I've been waiting on are never coming to fruition. Hell, I'm not even sure anymore what I've been waiting on. It sounds more like an excuse to be responsible to the wild side of me. There's all kinds of things I want to do that I haven't. I've traveled, but almost always for work. There's been rare exceptions to that but nothing like my bucket list. I want to see Hong Kong, before it goes communist or China and Russia are the new super powers and Americans are no longer welcomed as cash cows. I'd like to see Poland, the Black Forest, London, all of Scotland, the Mediterranean from Morocco, Venice, maybe Moscow. I'd like to hike the Great Wall, see the Forbidden City, and see the Mongolian hills. Call it wanting to see my roots firsthand. Of course, the wild of me would also be just as content to sell everything, move to a beach and live as a semi bum along an ocean. Not even particular to which ocean as long as it's peaceful, there's a small bar (maybe even my own) close by, and I can do yoga in the morning while watching the sun rise. Reading on the shoreline--newspapers, philosophy, history. I could stand to catch up on Bertrand Russell who was one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century and get a glimpse into one of my mother's favorite writers. My wild side wants to finish the novel, one of the three or all three, that I've started. Maybe even dabble in a master's of arts in history. My wild side may feel a little intellectually starved.
Oh sure, I recognize that this crisis probably doesn't even remotely resemble what other people would refer to as a mid-life crisis. Don't forget the previous disclaimer. I'm just starting to feel like Walter Mitty, the written version not the movie version, where the fantasy has become a suitable replacement to a desired reality. Of course, my wild side certainly knows better. But then I've done a lot of the things I've set out to accomplish. It's a reality that I know so many people never achieve. I've been very blessed that I've had the drive to accomplish those things that I've set to achieve. It's not like I haven't had my setbacks like anyone else. Sometimes the setbacks for the achievers are just reminders that everything in life is also a smidge of luck, good or bad, and that we can never predict, control or harness everything. There's a bit of a gamble in everything we try--even with the best laid plans. So I'm also not naive that all of my accomplishments are because of my wild side, albeit properly reined in.
So there begs the question then. Who am I? Who are any of us? A sum of words that can be put to paper? For some of us, perhaps that is all we are and we are content. But for those of us that can never be summed up completely in a few words, and especially those of us that could fill volumes and still not be completely defined, well, who are we? Maybe I just need a vacation. A new chapter. Or maybe it's time to start a whole new volume in the series of volumes that makes up me.
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