At a Loss

I find myself at a loss, at a crossroads, questioning my identity. Who am I? How do I identify myself? Like most people I think I have always identified myself by the work I do, my friends, my family. I say I am a special ed para or a victim advocate or a wife and mother. I say I am so and so's friend. People even identify me in those terms. I'm Jessica, Joe and Larissa's mom or Johns wife or the lady that works at the school. But who am I really? When everything has been stripped away and your left lying bare who are you?

This is the position that I find myself in right now. I have been stripped bare of what I thought of as my identity. My jobs are gone, my friends are gone as I made my jobs my life, my children are growing up and have their own lives. So who am I? Where do I go from here?

These last three weeks have been some of the hardest I have faced in years. I have struggled with what has been happening in my life and wondering where am I going for the first time in years. But then a wise woman said to me, “Tracy you have to allow yourself to grieve. You have lost something very important to you.” These words struck a very deep cord in me. I have lost something very important. I have lost not only my jobs and those around me but I have lost me.

So here I sit at one in the morning starting with the basic building blocks that are me. I am a kind, caring and compassionate person. I am strong. I am outspoken. I am beautiful. I fight for what I believe in, for who I believe in. I know that there are others that believe in me but I know that it is most important to believe in myself. To believe in my self worth. I am allowing myself to grieve the things that I have lost so that I may be a stronger person for the things to come. I am walking a new path in my life but not scared of where it will take me.

The most important thing that I have learned out of all this though is to never again allow things like jobs and others to define who I am or will be. No matter what road lies ahead I will remember to remember me. I will define myself.