Well, Just Who the Hell Am I Then?

Hi.  My name is April.  I'm kind of just getting to know me again, too!

When I was a little kid, I had some confidence.  I mean the kind of confidence where I'd run around the house in nothing but my Wonder Woman Underroos, leaping from the back of the couch to the seat of the chair and somersaulting across the floor.  There was nothing I couldn't do.  

I had Big Dreams, a Big Personality (some would say overwhelming), Big Ideas, Big Opinions, a Big Mouth.  

A Big Heart.

Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that I'd be a lot more easy for other people to stomach if I were a little less big... a little less...Me.  

I remember clearly one day in junior high, feeling like I didn't belong anywhere, and that nobody liked me the way I was. I was standing in the mirror, and I saw this short, round, frizzy-red-haired troll with glasses and crooked teeth and bad skin peering back at me, and I looked back at her and said "F*ck this shit," and started packing myself away into smaller and smaller boxes to avoid taking up quite so damn much room in other people's lives.  

Then maybe I could fit in a little better and people would like me more.  

No matter how less obtrusive I made myself, it was never quite enough for some.  I'd be sparkly when they needed drab, and my sparkly would butt up against their drab, and there'd be conflict.  I'd have the audacity to ask for attention or space, and I'd be pushy or distant.  The message I'd get is "It'd be so much better if you could just not be so... you!"  and my damn big stupid heart took the message and I'd smallify accordingly.

I've got to be just sparkly enough not to come off as a miserable cow, but not so sparkly as to make others feel bad about themselves for not being willing or able to be sparkly.

 Be Smart Enough, but not too smart.

Apologize for everything.  Taking up too much space, talking too loud, being too ambitious, being not ambitious enough.  Definitely apologize for apologizing!

Got it.  

And then came the day somebody asked me who I am, and I answered without missing a beat, "I'm April Blake.  I'm Zoe's Mom and Shane's wife.  He's a dentist..."

"Yeah, but who are you?" they asked.  "Not in terms of mom or wife.  Who are you?"

I didn't know how to answer.  And I apologized for not knowing how to answer, because the fact that I'd smallified myself so much that I had lost who I am had happened so gradually, over decades, that I didn't realize that I'd even lost me.  I never identified myself as a person who didn't know who I was. I thought I knew exactly who I was, what I wanted, what I don't like.  I don't like people who don't know who they are, because how much of a wimp do you have to be?

Turns out I've gotten a sudden lesson in empathy for people who don't know who they are or what they want.  I understand how you can slip away from yourself without even noticing.  

I don't think I'm ever going to have the confidence to run around the house in my Wonder Woman UnderRoos.  That's probably just fine. But I'm working on having the confidence to be me and to know Who I Am without worrying who I'm Too Much for. It's a journey, Friends!