I have been creating a world of different characters as I grow my blog'ality series Look At My Fabulous Life! and I have truly been enjoying the process. I have noticed though that recently I haven't been engaging that much with me. Of course I get up each day with an intention and most times I follow it through, but I'm not tapped into the most center of myself. I know why too.
I do not resemble the person I thought I would be at this time in my life. If I look too hard and too long I might start to nit-pick, analyze and dissect why the image in the frame looks so very different than the one I painted of myself so long ago.
Let's back-track a little. Picture a shy, wide-eyed girl carrying an over-sized backpack. In it were way too many books, a Sony Walkman, packs of Now and Later candy, notes from boys scribbled on legal pad paper, pencils of all shapes and sizes, a pen that burst which created a super-sized ink stain at the bottom of the bag, a diary with a purple cover and a red and black heart-shaped charm.
The book-bag hung on the shoulder of a girl who wrestled with ambition and often got body-slammed by her inner emotional condition. Debate team member, editor of the school paper and yearbook, drama club standout and choir girl. I was on the radio as a teen and wrote articles for the local paper. I was what you called gifted. I even took a test that gauged my gifted'ness and put it at a high level. Proof.
On the surface of my life I was set. I had a loving boyfriend and was college-bound. Cue the afternoon movie music. But there were secrets, some known and others hidden. Only my close friends knew that I was adopted and the horrors I sometimes faced at home. I hid my feelings about my biological and adoptive families. Stuffed them like cotton in teeth whose fillings had fallen out. My smile was effervescent. I walked with pride knowing that despite my fragmented existence my intelligence would take me places.
Years later I would move to the Big Apple and become a college graduate and work in journalism and public relations. I still carried a book-bag of sorts, but it was more fanciful and paraded as a purse. The questions I had about family would slowly be revealed over time and are still being answered. I learned more about how I came to be, looked into the eyes of the woman who gave birth to me and to this day she is still a mystery. The woman who raised me who once was my tormentor has now become a comfort and a friend. I had searched for so long for a substitute for my "substitute" mom as it were and the original has not lived up to the hype. Life is funny that way.
I know I am strong and a survivor, that I have proved many times over. I know I am a writer of merit and getting better by the day. I know my value is worth more than my paycheck and my legacy is still being written, but I can't help feeling that I've fallen short of my goals. I was supposed to be a published author, an accomplished actress, a wife and mother and a jet setter by now! What happened?
I am a writer with a blog that I cherish, single, no children and a unpublished novelist. My last "date" was on a park bench with a "enchanting" stranger whom I lost interest in the very next day. I pray each morning as I wake and it gives me peace, but I still feel the pangs of being incomplete. I know I am a work in constant progress and that fact is also a comfort. I see myself as a whole package, not in parts and know that I am very close to my destiny. I can feel it so strong on some days.
When I see myself through others eyes I'm reflected nicely back to me. Although I feel the sting of unspoken questions in their expressions. Why is your book not yet published? Why are you not married? No children? Why? Who are you living for? If you have no family, how do you spend your day? What on earth do you do? I know the economy is bad but why haven't you found a job yet?
Here are some answers to the questions that linger in my mind and those of others:
Even though my portrait looks a lot different than expected after it's development, I walk with confidence from the dark-room. The frame is still beautiful, youthful and sturdy and the contrast of my curvature is vibrant and strong. The shadowing and contours of the lines of my life jump, stop, fall and rise just as sun and shade reflect their rays and darkness over the world. My angles are ambient and my tint has great tone.
I can be anything I want to be at any given time. My photograph will be measured by it's depth and ability to extract feeling and provoke passion and thought. I don't mind being a multi-layered question as there will always be the possibility of an ultimate answer.
Who am I?
Each day I discover who and what and why and how. Today I am breath, light, air and song. Tomorrow I may be texture, stone, feathers and clay. I am in this moment defined and undefinable. God's ink blot. Pixels and colors on earth's canvas. Me.
My Blog Lyric Fire: The Changing Brain & Fading Friends
Sometimes I wonder where I've been
Who I am
Do I fit in.
Make believin' is hard alone,
Out here on my own
When I was younger the only early morning thoughts I had consisted of what I was going to eat for breakfast and what outfit I was going to wear. My mind was selectively quiet. It was a silent sponge, soaking up knowledge, only sparking my tongue to speak when it needed to and at other times it seemed like it was constantly at the beach. Riding the waves and soaking up sun rays.
Not to say I'm not a deep thinker, I always have been, but I lived more outside my own mind if that makes sense.
Now, it seems that my brain has diarrhea of the mouth! As soon as I wake in the morning, just like a sprinter, it's off to the races. I'm processing the dream I had the night before, writing grocery lists, plotting out future blog posts, remembering conversations from five years ago, asking why this and why that, pumping myself up over current successes or pondering why my phone doesn't ring as much as it used to. My brain never shuts up anymore.
Look, I'm not complaining. I'd rather have an active brain than an inactive one any day, but I find it fascinating that as we get older the thoughts we suppressed or weren't yet mature enough to have ravish our cerebral cortex like two teenagers in heat.
We're always provin' who we are
Always reachin' for the risin' star
To guide me far
And shine me home
Out here on my own
Then I remember. My life has changed dramatically. In the past few years my work situation has been invariably different. I've done more independent contracting as opposed to full-time work. I no longer have a large group of work friends to bounce my millions of thoughts off of. My circle of personal friends has also gotten a lot smaller and more digitized. When I do "speak" to a friend it's usually on Facebook or through text which makes for brief "conversation." Some friends have moved or gotten married and some have faded away altogether.
When I'm down and feelin' blue
I close my eyes so I can be with you
Oh, baby, be strong for me
Baby, belong to me
Help me through
Help me need you
A natural occurrence, I know, but my brain seems to be speaking out over these losses. It's behaving like an angry pet whose family goes away on vacation and leaves him or her in a kennel. When the family returns, they bark or meow incessantly crying out for attention. They are sayin whoo hoo! Over here! Feed me, love me, hug me, talk to me. Make up for the time when you were gone!
Could it be true that all the time we spend talking to others makes our brains jealous? When those outside forces dwindle, the brain gets happy. Oooh weee mommy can come back out to play. Let's invade her mind with endless banter about horoscopes, recipes and politics. Let's beat her into submission by conjuring up thoughts of lost love and reality TV. Oh yeah, let's trick her and make her think she forgot to turn the oven off before she left the house.
The brain, so beautiful, yet devious.
What about those friends and boyfriends and family members that used to be my sounding board? Where are they now when I need them to rescue me from my Chatty Cerebellum? Could they also be reentering a closer relationship with their own gray matter? Or perhaps they've moved on to create relationships with other humans that can lend a different perspective on things.
Well, whatever the case I'm totally cognitive of the shifts and changes in my brain and friendships. It's fascinating and frightening, but very thought provoking!
I'm sure when I settle back into a regular work schedule and become more active this summer that my brain will settle down. I think I'll call the Mental Miles Airline and book a trip to an exotic location for later this year. My brain has been a very social and engaging partner lately. I think it needs a vacation. I think I'll also get myself a ticket as well and ask a few of those fading friends to come along. It would be nice to get reacquainted with the sun and sand as a backdrop.
What do you THINK?
Sometimes I wonder where I've been
Who I am
Do I fit in
I may not win
But I can't be thrown
Out here on my own
On my own
Posted by Tameka Mullins (Tamstarz) on 01/22/2011 at 08:45 AM in Social Commentary, Streams of Consciousness | Permalink | Comments (0)
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