know yourself

My parents divorced when I was seven. Mother married again when I was eleven and my brothers were ten and nine. It was a strange thing to have a man in the house again, to be expected to call him “Dad”, and to abide by his rules and way of doing things. He was a professor, a doctor of sociology, so he knew what he was talking about and although the adjustment had its difficulties, we did what we could to help things work out for our new family.

One of the things he stressed to us during those formative years was the importance of knowing who you are. When someone would “go off the deep end” or make a drastically poor choice, he would explain, “They just don’t know who they are”. My brothers and I always puzzled over that, what does that mean? How can someone not know who they are, they’ve lived with themselves their whole life, who else would they be?

Then a few years ago I finally understood; he was right. I understood because I realized that I had lost sight of, or forgotten, who I am. In the years of taking care of everyone else around me, years of being whatever everyone else expected me to be, needed me to be, I had neglected to nurture the authentic me, and she was nearly dead. It has been a difficult thing to reawaken my authentic self, but I have learned what it means to know who you are and I have learned how crucial it is to honor who you really are, for only then can you have a truly happy life. More tomorrow…