Perpetually confused about who I am, what I am, how I got this way, I’m lost in a state of never knowing. From place to place my atoms shift like sand in an hour glass. Location, location, location. They always say it’s all about location. And I’d have to say I agree. For when my feet touch down on that solid ground of my home I am but the person I’ve always remembered being. But when they shift south for the winter I emerge as someone completely different, someone unrecognizable. I am not myself, but yet I am at the same time.
I stop and realize that the person I think I am may not be the person I truly consider myself to be. It may not be the person I truly want to be. And that scares the fuck out of me. Like here, for instance. Am I the type of person who swears? In my past this would have been an easy to answer question. I grew up hearing swears and I think I swore for the first time at the tender age of four. At my preschool teacher, mind you. Calling her a bitch to her face probably wasn’t a smart move. But now, as I mold myself into the adult I wish to call myself, I’m not sure these words are longer valuable in my vocabulary.
I once heard my English professor swear. And I swear, in that moment, my world shifted and I realized how some women can fall in love with men twice their age. It wasn’t the word itself, but the emphasis of the point he was trying to make. I believe the exact words were, “Fuck it’s brilliant.” And his target, either a work by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, or Hemingway. Though my heart and my legs fell open with his words, does that mean that the words are right coming out of my mouth? I’m not sure, but I do know that the line between classy and trashy is a tightrope of sorts. Lose your balance and your face will become a permanent fixture in the ground. I don’t wish to face that fate, so I walk with caution.
In the end, I’m stuck in a wasteland of in-betweens. While I wish my layers could shed and I could morph into epitome of class there are still tiny specks in me that stubbornly remain. The dresses and the pearls are not enough to hide the fire and dirt stained patches of my past. On the other side of this free-falling coin, there are other moments where I could fall apart and not require a Humpty Dumpty’s men to make me whole again. Simple abandon. That’s all I want sometimes. A life where I’m not afraid to make mistakes and my psyche doesn’t fall apart when I make them. But alas, this is something that my type-a personality will not allow.
So the in-between is my domain and my levels fluctuate depending on location. Staring into the future, I am one person; yet looking into the past, I’m another. And as my body shifts back and forth between these two places, my mind races to keep up. And as time passes I come to the realization that a decision will have to be made eventually. My life will shift to a realm so distant from where I have ever been before and who I am will have to coincide with this new location. I will be forced to circumnavigate who I am to become the person I am meant to be. And that is all the more terrifying.
“This above all- to thine own self be true…” ~William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Bittersweet Symphony 