Who Are You?

the serendipity of letting go

lush green tall trees I get to see when I go for walks, near my house in France

My friend Myk (https://coda.io/@mykola-bilokonsky/public-neurodiversity-support-center) invited us to ask ourselves this question in one of his life-changing Twitter threads recently. A question I’ve been struggling with for a while as it turns out. Ask the question and listen to what you’re hearing from inside. Let it come and go, let it be chaotic, try to see the answer through the noise that’s made of you.

As my children are getting older, I’m not a “soccer mom” anymore (even though not of them ever played soccer). I still do the occasional school run but now my car is filled with preteens who smell like sour sweat and are in competition with who’s saying the most stupidest thing so that the others will laugh. It’s very sweet to witness their growth, but I’m just the fucking driver.

I’m not a wife anymore, nor a daughter (have I ever been a child? -a question for another day), and I’m not a coworker. The list goes on, and I don’t want to keep defining myself with what I am and am not in relation to people.

I’ve started reading No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness With the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz, I had the book for months but was waiting to be ready for it, it’s a very emotional read.

I also read in one day, which is unusual for me, The Cassandra Complex (Cassandra in Reverse -US version) by Holly Smale.

Two books about identity, about our relations to ourselves and the world, about welcoming the “good” and the “bad” and, more importantly, about stopping to relentlessly try to fix what we instead need to love.

Who are you?

I am love.