Who I Am/ Who Am I

"I don't know who I am anymore!"

I shouted this in the kitchen today. Then I promptly took it back.

Because the reality is I know more about who I am than I ever have. For the first time in my life, I can clearly see where I'm coming from. I see my hurts and hangups, I see my hopes and dreams, I see myself in an entirely new way.

I'm just realizing that the person I am is very different from the person I pretended to be. I am everything I swore I would never be, everything that used to scare me. I think deep down I was afraid of the fullness of who I was, so I stuffed it down and became who I was expected to be instead.

So here I am, in the eye of the storm that is myself. Everything around me is falling to pieces, but I am standing solid in the center. It's new and it's beautiful and it's me.

Question and Answer

I've been thinking a lot about this lately- questioning. My life feels like one huge question mark right now. How did the past shape me? What do I want for my future? Who am I now? Is who I am even compatible with the life I want? Where does "God" stand in the middle of all this?

All the questions.
All the time.

It can be exhausting. Because each time I think I have found an answer, that answer brings about even more questions.

I used to cling to my answers. Lately some of my old answers have finally fallen away, and I am finding that I have more space without them. There is more room to exist in questions, there is space for growth and healing and new life.

The reality is, the answers will never be enough. Answers are finite. Our answers used to tell us that the earth was flat. It was only continued questioning that brought us new, truer answers. We continue this process over and over, as humanity and as individuals, we desperately seek answers until we realize they are too small. Then we ask new questions, we make new answers, and the cycle continues.

The problem with an answer is it has an end point. Once you have reached the end of it, there's no room for anything more. That answer will keep you there as long as you let it. It will tell you what to do and where to go, it will control you.

Questions though, they are whimsical. Like a dance or like the wind, they don't tell you what you're going toward but instead call you deeper. The questions in and of themselves reveal to you who you are and what matters to you. They give you space to be who you need to be, you can hold them as you are becoming. They will be patient with you, and they will never demand that you arrive or finish your work with them. You can ask the same question for ten years, and you will find that it has grown and evolved with you. It will stay as long as you allow it.

I love when someone is in a state of questioning and allows  me to witness it. It's a beautiful transformation that happens, when people ask the questions they were so afraid of and find freedom on the other side. It's the stuff of life. I love watching it in other people, I'm learning to love it in myself.

So please don't cut off your questions, don't shut them down with easy answers. Because these questions are shaping and carrying you. They are teaching you who you are and giving you the space to grow. Love your questions. In your questions I see who you are, and with each question you are more beautiful than you were the moment before.

Unreal

Words are deeply important to me. When I feel trapped or hurt or hopeful, when I need to understand emotions I cannot express, I usually need to write it out. Because the words that flow from my fingertips tell me more about who I am and how I feel than I could ever comprehend on my own.

That being said, when I begin using a word frequently it usually means that my heart is speaking up. Lately, I've noticed that I am always writing or saying "unreal".

Like when I look at an amazing sunrise, or speak to someone that amazes me, or hear about healing.
It is unreal.

But I'm beginning to realize is that when I say it is unreal, I mean that it is more real than everything else. This sunrise, her heart, the redemptive quality of life- it is more real than all of the other thoughts that run through my mind. It's an experience. It pulls me into a moment that is disconnected from the world because it is so much of the world at once. It is the very stuff of life, the parts that make it full and real and whole. It is unreal. 

Forward

When I had my eye surgery I received very specific instructions from my doctor-
“You have to keep your eyes looking forward at the light in front of you. When the blade cuts you, there will be a moment where you can’t see anything. Keep looking forward anyway. You have to keep looking forward or we will cut the wrong part of your eye.”

I remember praying my little heart out. When the whole world went dark, I resisted the urge to look around me and find another light. I kept looking at the dark void where the light had been, choosing to believe that light would be there again when the procedure was finished.

This week I was on an airplane, and there was a moment where we flew through a cloud. Suddenly everything was a haze. But we went forward anyway. It occurred to me that pilots never try to navigate around the clouds, because they already know which direction they are going. The pilot could always course correct later if he needed.

And let me tell you, that stuck with me.

Lately I feel like I’m going in blind. I’m being cut open. I’m in a haze. I feel darkness where I once felt light. Sometimes I panic and want to turn elsewhere. I tell myself that maybe if I focus on someone else I can get out of this place? Until I realize that would mean going backwards.

So here I am, eyes forward even though I have no way of knowing what’s ahead. Because the only way out of this pain is through it.

This sunrise.

Yesterday I went for an early morning walk because I knew I needed to see this sunrise. I was stuck in my head and needed something beautiful to reconnect me to my heart. As I watched the colors of the sky transform I began to cry. I felt so inadequate in the vastness of it all. I knew that never again would the sky look quite like it did in that moment. My heart broke for all the things I am afraid to lose and everything I have already lost.

But I just couldn't look away.

I realized that my desire for beauty is greater than my fear of loss. I cannot stop life from holding pain and risk and heartbreak. I can, however, choose to chase healing and hope and love. There is something about the fullness of this moment. Life will never again be what it is right now and that is both life giving and heart breaking. Somewhere in the paradox of it all is a beauty I can't describe.

So I made a decision, I am not going to look away. No matter how scared I am, even though this moment will never exist again, I will keep looking because I don't want to miss the beautiful things life has given me.

Going through hell.

I've been thinking lately about the people who inspire me. The ones who teach me the difference between living and being alive. They are young, old, and in between. They laugh when shit hits the fan, and sometimes they cry just because. They have soft hearts and strong will.

But what sets them apart more than anything else is that they have suffered greatly. They are addicts, refugees, single parents, abandoned children, caretakers, mentally ill, the abused and the abusers. They all know what it's like to fall apart and build themselves back up. Through all the pain they chose and the pain they were given, they found beauty and hope. It's as if they see the magic and love in the world that the rest of us forget in our complacency.

It seems to me that the people who most bring heaven to this world are the ones who have already been through hell. 

The Getaway Bag

I had a pretty unique childhood. I was a homeschooled missionary kid whose biggest concerns were mosquito bites and evangelism. Until I was 11 and my life turned upside down. Suddenly I was a depressed kid from a broken home. The police came to my house on a weekly basis. I lived with my abuser and couldn’t do a thing about it. I began going to public school and was desperately trying to hide my situation.

So I developed coping mechanisms. I turned anger in toward myself and helped others as a way outside of myself. I began unhealthy relationships with food and self-harm.
And I also had my getaway bag.

The getaway bag was my only tangible coping mechanism. It was ready at all times with emergency cash, a change of clothes, a bible, and toiletry essentials. I only actually used the bag to getaway a couple times, but I would often use it to calm myself.
I would sit in my closet holding the bag, reminding myself that I had a way out. Life wasn’t hopeless quite yet. It reminded me that there was still time to start again.

I carried this habit with me when I moved to Cambodia. Of course I was safe there, but what if one day I wasn’t? I told myself that the political situation could change at any point. I believed I had to be ready to flee at all times. Not because anyone in Cambodia told me this, but because it was the way I lived for so long. I brought my coping mechanisms across the world with me.

Now I’m back in America, attempting to heal these old wounds. I intentionally haven’t packed a getaway bag this time. I’ve noticed myself missing it though. When I get overwhelmed with anxiety, I start thinking about packing the bag just to feel a bit more safe.

But the reality is that I’m not unsafe anymore. I’m not 11 years old. I’m not being abused.
I am growing and I am healing.
I am letting go of unhealthy coping mechanisms.
I am getting ready for the wild, beautiful journey ahead of me.
When the time comes to go I’ll be ready and I’ll be traveling light this time. Because this journey is far too great to let extra baggage weigh me down.