Who Am I?

Day by day, as I lay on the couch, sit on the couch, move to a chair, crawl up the stairs, and crawl back down, the layers of who I think I am are peeled away.

Being unable to walk is unnerving for anyone, and especially for a woman whose defining characteristic is "busy".  I hear this all the time - "you are so busy" "I don't know how you do it" "do you ever sit down?" In fact, I've heard it so much that I fear I wear it like a badge of honor - I am a busy woman. People respect me for the way I multitask. Others wish they could juggle what I juggle.  

So what happens?  In an instant, I am stripped of the very thing that defines me.  I am no longer busy.  I am, in fact, stuck in sludge, unable to get up, forced to watch life proceed around me, holding up my hand in the back of the class as if to say, "wait, what just happened? what did I miss?" It fills me with a nervousness that hits in waves. At one moment I am fine; the next I am in a panic about how I will find my way back to myself.  But, as we all know, there is no going back. So, I move forward toward myself, yet to be defined by what lies ahead.

The irony of this is not lost on me.  I know that I have been "handed" this immobility because it will force me to get to the core of who I am. Without my calendar to keep and my meetings to attend and my errands to run, I am forced to ask the question - who am I?  Really. WHO AM I? The answer to this is an uncomfortable, "I don't know."

I have been thinking about this question a lot.  My first answer was, "I am a mother."  But even that has shifted these last 10 days.  My children have stepped up in a way fitting of how I hoped I had raised them. They are doing laundry, washing dishes, bringing me everything I need.  In fact, they've stepped up so well that it's made me feel slightly irrelevant.  Sort of like an old typewriter that you love but don't really need.  I know my children need me.  But, watching them take care of me has made me realize they don't need me in the same ways anymore.  They are older and more responsible than I give them credit for. So I am a mother in transition.

I am a wife. But, not in the ways I've been a wife for nearly 20 years.  I am not making Bryan coffee in the morning. I am not getting newspaper so it's ready for him when he comes downstairs.  I am not cooking dinner for my family. I am at the mercy of my home versus running my home.  My home has always been my haven and a reflection of my love for my family.  Now, I watch Bryan and others move through each room, trying to do what they know I would do and make things look the way they know I like them.  The love I feel through these actions is nearly crippling.

Having all these earthly trappings we equate with power and purpose and identity and control stripped from me very suddenly made me realize that none of us is any of the things we think we are.  I need to uncover who I am in spite of being busy, or being a mom or being a wife.

Underneath it all, who am I?

All I know is that I don't know. But I have six weeks (and the rest of my life) to figure it out.