I don't know who I am

Each time I need to tell people about me, I get stuck. It used to be easy, but I have to admit that the story was always modified for each telling. I am searching for truth now, and looking for wisdom, so it's become more difficult. What's a story when it comes to the truth? Who am I?

There are the vital statistics, when I was born, who I'm married to, children, grandchildren, where I live. And there are other facts about myself, such as career, education, my travels. There are my hobbies, my interests. There are my 'driving forces'.

But who am I?

I can compare myself to others and can then come up with some sort of picture of 'who I am'. When I worked at the IBM lab in Hursley, I shared my office with a gorgeous woman named Sue. So, I was the woman who shared an office with Sue to the people we worked with. (Sue, by the way, has become one of my closest friends.) I was young, then, and I wanted to be more like Sue. She was tall, slim, vibrant and intelligent. So, I was short, fat, boring and stupid.

I'm glad I grew out of that phase. It was not a happy time for me.

I probably do what a lot of people do when we tell the story of who we are - we modify it for the audience. That story would be incomplete, and may be subject to embellishments. It's like a box, a multi-sided person who turns from one side to the next, depending on which persona best suits the listener. But the inside is dark, a mystery. No one knows what's in there.

It's almost like the question, 'What is God?'. I don't mean this to in any way that impiy that I think I'm God. I don't. But it requires sinking down through the layers of 'stories' to the fundamental truth. The truth of God is beyond my comprehension. The truth of who I am is beyond my comprehension, too, but I think that there is a possibility that I might someday find the answer to that one. I look forward to that day.

Or maybe after a while it won't matter.

I close my eyes and try to clear my mind, try to stop the mental noise, concerns for tomorrow, anxieties of all those crazy mixed up yesterdays, and look for the simple uncluttered truth of who I am. All I can come up with is - I am me.