Who AM I?

Yesterday, I had a moment. To be more accurate, the "moment" had actually come the day before and lasted until sometime yesterday afternoon. I felt out of sorts and not myself. Typically, I go about my days in a good mood with a plan for action. Yesterday, I was morose, weepy and certain that the world was ending. "Who AM I?," I wondered. I NEVER feel this way.

My sister called. That generally helps. She gave me permission to be grouchy. "There is a lot about the world the world that sucks right now," she assured me.

After I hung up the phone, I reflected on what she said. She is right, of course. The world is a messy, unjust and terrifying place right now. It's hard to go to the store, hard to have conversations with neighbors about race, hard to fix a terribly broken system and hard to repair relationships that feel so very fractured.

It occurred to me yesterday that what was really bothering me was a shift in the things that define me. I love being a teacher, and yet there is no school right now. I love being a mother, and while my kids still live with and hangout with me, they don't need a lot of direct mothering these days. I love being helpful to my boyfriend and my family, but the weekend was busy and I never did get a chance to see Mike and my family is all still in quarantine, too.

These might not seem like huge obstacles, but to me, they felt heavy. How will I spend my days if I cannot do the things that make me, well, me? I don't have a long term solution to this problem - although there is always lots of reading, revising and planning that goes into summer work for teachers.

What strikes me as more relevant is the idea that all of us are facing the question of Who am I? and we should be. Our nation has made big mistakes and so many of us have not noticed how big and how unjust until recently. We would be remiss if that alone did not make us question what the hell has been going on.

An identity shift is hard and it's personal. It requires time to notice and reflect. It requires mentors and friends who can help us awaken, process and change. 

In light of my own identity crisis, I started to think about how many other people around me were going through similar feelings and situations. I thought about the time when I had to postpone my walk with my 83 year old friend because the city had imposed a curfew. "Surely that doesn't apply to us," she mused only to later call me and explain that she'd had an aha moment about how her privilege had inspired that knee jerk reaction. I thought about a Black Lives Matter event that my boys and I had attended in our fairly white township that was robust and powerful. Ten years ago, maybe even ten weeks ago, I am not sure it would have been well received or attended. I thought about the countless small business owners (my boyfriend among them) who are shifting the ways in which they do business to be safer and more culturally responsive.

It's easy to be comfortable with who you are when you've been doing things the same or maybe even well for a long time. But asking ourselves the important question of Who am I? helps us question assumptions, shed habits that aren't great and see ourselves more clearly.

I will always love being a teacher - but being a remote teacher who is increasingly more woke will help me to be a better teacher when I (hopefully) return to school in the fall. I will always relish my role as a mom - but talking with my adult sons about how we can collectively make the world a fairer place will help me to see them as the men they are (and it's a lot better than making beds and school lunches). I will always love helping people who matter to me - but I am better at it when I am able to really listen to what they need and have time to plan for it.

Fortunately, my moment of angst is over for know. But what remains in a really good question to guide me through the summer.