You are more than what your function is right now

Dear Mommies of Young Children, and You in Identity Crisis,

Sometimes it feels like parts of you are in danger of being erased. I remember how that felt. I know how lonely it was to not have my entire self known and acknowledged, to have a huge chunk of my history blocked out because I had immigrated and morphed into a mommy. Or because I had succumbed to the day-in, day-out existence of a desk drone. Sound familiar?

Fourteen years into marriage, I left my husband and set up an apartment. I had married at 23, and hadn't ever lived on my own before. I hadn't even balanced a checkbook or paid household bills. It was exhilarating to learn to do those grown-up things. Fortunately, I was confident and competent on the job and able to support myself. It was just my at-home self that needed an extreme makeover.

All my feelings of newfound independence and wholeness came to be embodied by the objects that I assembled to create a haven for myself. I confided in my marriage counselor that I was unwilling to give up the apartment when my husband and I fully reconciled five years later. I was frightened that I would be swallowed up again in the misery of not being known, of being treated like someone's appendage. What she said proved true: Once you are strong, you won't need these outward reminders. They are props.

This is what my experience has shown me: You are not in danger of losing yourself. You will always have, and always be, everything that is you. You will carry it inside you, your past innocence, your present angst, your aspirations for the future. Later, even when you think who you were and wanted to be is long gone, long forgotten, because nobody has, for years, cared to see you for who you are—even then you will still be you, beautiful, exceedingly wise, aware. An even more amazing version of yourself. You will share bits of you like buried treasure, only with the deserving, only when you choose to, only when they are listening and not talking above you. You will not need to be constantly affirmed by external sources, not by souvenirs of your past—not even by your spouse, nor your children, as fiercely as you love them. You define yourself.

Love and blessings,
Scrollwork

This is a post that began as a comment on Joy Page Manuel's deep, thought-provoking blog, Catharsis. Read her post here.

I feel like a dinosaur. Earlier this week I was elated to find a message from a recruiter on LinkedIn, alerting me to an opening for a Social Media Analyst in my city. That happens as often as a comet coming close to earth.

Everything is riding on my getting a full-time job now that the hubby was forced into semi-retirement a year and a half earlier than our finances can handle. I Google "how to respond to a recruiter on LinkedIn." The advice: Be coy. Don't sound desperate.

I respond to his message, "It sounds interesting. Let's discuss." I click a checkbox and LinkedIn sends him my resumé and phone number. He sends me a questionnaire.

My background: A combined three years of managing Facebook pages for two small businesses (one of them mine) and a non-profit. A couple of years of shooting, editing and uploading to Flickr and YouTube. Two years of researching keywords on Google AdWords before writing descriptions for my etsy clothing shop. Five minutes of creating Pinterest and Twitter accounts and then never making the time to participate.

Part of the prospective employer's inquiry: "Tell me about your experience with:

Testing and Tracking

Social Media Marketing Technologies & Platforms 

Leveraging Data Driven Research/Analysis to drive: Strategic Direction, Best Practices, and Process Improvements"

One word repeats itself in my head like a mantra: Nada, nada, nada...I had to Google "Social Media Marketing Technologies" to find out what's out there that my no-budget businesses have been missing out on.

It isn't enough to love words, to wield them masterfully, to use their power to inspire and compel to action. Not for that particular employer, anyway. I am reminded of a comment made by an interim vice president at a former job: "But all you do is write."

Coincidentally, the hubby is going through similar angst over an opening for Mechanical Electrical Superintendent at the company for which a family member works. There are major requirements he cannot fulfill.

After agonizing for a day, I let it go. I message the recruiter that I'm taking myself out of the race, and explain why. I feel like I've let down the friends who have been praying for me. 

Sure, I've always counseled my youngest not to tell herself "No" when others are only too happy to do that. But in my case, as with my husband's, the skills required cannot be learned on the job/faked until we actually acquire them. They have to be in place or we sink. And we don't really need to sink any lower in our own eyes.

The hubs and I have come to a deeper level of empathy for each other as we deal with the circumstances. It occurs to me that had I not lost my day job three years ago, I would've been useless in helping him emotionally now. I've lived the hurt, the self-doubt, the feeling of being no longer viable in the work world.

I've felt the jolt of being an alien in a full-price grocery store. If there are no eggs at the 99 Cent Store that week, we go without eggs rather than pay full price. Eating out now means selecting from the Dollar Menu at McDonald's. And yet, we eat surprisingly well at home, thanks to the fresh produce and great selection at the 99 Cent Store.

I look at our house, remembering the optimism that flooded us 20-plus years ago when we were approved for a mortgage. Does this house still serve our highest good, or should we let it go? We've had perfect credit forever, and now, are we going into foreclosure? 

I consider our aging bodies, minus health care coverage. Will any more of my organs burst, like my appendix did last year? 

All around us, just these past two months, our friends have been dealt harsher blows: the sudden death of a spouse, of a beloved pet, the return of cancer. You can replace a job and a dwelling, but not a person, a furry family member or a healthy body.

What we're going through is a common storyline for millions of other people. We've been insulated from it for so many years. Now it's staring us in the face, and we'll find out if we're made of sterner stuff.

Dinosaurs were fierce, but maybe they just weren't strategic. I don't want to become extinct.

Rough patches build character

It's a bedspread, lily white, with endlessly fascinating loops, pleats and purposeful wrinkles. The antique edges are a photo editing trick courtesy of picmonkey.com. I snapped this picture inside an Anthropologie (home decor & clothing) store early in November. The hubs and I were wandering around Berkeley, California, retracing our first date 27 years ago as part of our 26th anniversary observance.

It's too tempting not to give in to the metaphor. A bed of roses, which life isn't. Rough patches, which we pass through like so many cobwebs in an abandoned house. A textured portrait of a real marriage and a grounded life.

Some folks like pristine, minimalist design and an orderly life. A starched white bedsheet comes to mind. I think the only use I might think of for that would be to tie it to the bars on the window and attempt to climb down from the prison of perfectionism.

The photograph reminds me of the many terraced rice paddies in the Philippines, where I grew up, and the acres and acres of pasture and farmland in California's Central Valley, where I've lived more than half my life.

All those furrows nestle spaces for growth, for pausing to reflect, for producing your life. You can tug at the bedspread and come at it with an iron to smooth it out, but it would be futile. You might even destroy the fabric you are working so hard to pretty up.

I told my husband, "I am SO ready for 2012 to be over." It's been a rough year in some ways but also a year of breakthroughs, hard-earned lessons and the squeaks of windows opening ever so slightly.

I haven't lost my taste for whimsy. I haven't surrendered my core belief that we have been gifted with a life of abundance. That abundance is simply manifesting in many other ways we would never have noticed had we not turned a corner and come upon "the new normal."

From wherever you are reading this, in whatever circumstances you find yourself, I am sending out goodwill and requests for blessings on your behalf. Let's face 2013 together.