March 4, 2013 Who is anyone? A dreaming search for self.

So, this blog started as as daily journal I posted on Facebook a few years ago. I decided to "go public" with it, in hopes of developing a following that would someday help me garner the support I need to become a published author. I wouldn't say that it's been the wild success I dreamed it could be, but I've come to look at it in the same way many people look at going to the gym, or jumping on a bicycle--it's exercise. It keeps me in the game, even if only in small increments.

Because of the inspiration behind coming to the blogosphere, I entitled my blog "The Sorcha Chronicles." Sorcha is the name of the main character in a book I have written, called "Soul Seeker." In the last week, my artist husband and I have been batting around ideas about what Sorcha looks like. In the parrying back and forth over stock photos and thoughts about a cover for the book, we've both been thinking a lot about who this fictional person is. Jeph even found himself asking the wider universe of Facebook 'Who is Sorcha?'

Artwork on the side of a building in Dublin.

I know that she fair skinned and has a mane of crazy red hair. She's slender and fit, but at the same time, she is somewhat fragile. She likes to dress in flannel shirts and solid boots. She's beautiful in a completely effortless and unpretentious way. She's outwardly intimidating, because she is so inside herself, and knows things other people don't know.

As we have been discussing what she looks like, I started thinking of Jeph's question. "Who is Sorcha?" And as I thought about it, I thought about what we are trying to do. We're trying to create something concrete out of something that's unreal. It got me thinking that that's what we do in our lives all the time, in various ways.

I'm very intrigued by the idea of persona creation. There's something very interesting about the idea of reinvention and reigniting yourself as something new. Most of us don't have many chances to do this as responsible adults who pay bills, but it's often times something we have done at different stages of our young lives in trying to discover who we are or want to be.

I feel like I spent the first fifteen or sixteen years of my life being fairly nondescript. The only thing that defined me as a kid was doing okay in school. I didn't belong to any clique. I was always kind of somewhere in between. Popular kids weren't my friends, but were mostly indifferent to me. I interacted with people from just about every group, but never really found a place until my junior year in high school, when  I fell in with a few very smart and artsy folks. I wore a lot of black and white in those days.

I sort of belonged, but the people I came to care about so much finished school and moved on. I was on my own again, and it was a tough time at home. I drew back into myself a lot, unable to find a place where I could really be my open self--whoever that was.

I did what many young people do. I relied on the people I spent the most time with to mold and shape me--sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. In my freshman year in college, I got contact lenses, because some frat boy I liked told me my glasses "fucked up" my face. It never occurred to me that I shouldn't be with someone who cared that much about my face, when he didn't care about any other part of me.

It's tough to find yourself when you don't believe in who you are, and even tougher when you can't decide who you are.

When Jeph got home this evening, he told me about a lunch date he had with a friend he looks to as a mentor. One of the things that struck me most about the conversation he shared with this friend was their discussion about the difficulties of parenting. They talked about the trap that many parents fall into with pushing and "pigeon-holing" their children into being things that they may not actually be choosing on their own.

I'm mixed about it. I came from a home where I didn't receive a lot of direction about who to be, other than submissive and fearful. I never let myself dream of possibilities, because I knew my stepfather would always find a way to quash any wild hair thing I wanted to do. He did it every time I wanted to try out for anything that wasn't academic. I was offered a part in a play I adored, but turned it down, because I knew he would make my life miserable until I gave it up anyway. Any mixed gender group or activity was an automatic mine field in our abusive home.

When I imagine being a parent myself, I imagine trying to instill a sense of choice and dreaming in my child. I imagine trying to foster the things that bring my child joy--whether playing sports, being artistic, or being a focused academic. I imagine answering the crazy questions with as much unbiased information as I can, and allowing her to develop her own thoughts on ideas and issues.

It's easy for me to imagine all of these things, because, for me, being a parent is still an idea that's in the ether--only something I am fighting very hard to be. I'm not the mom who worries for my child's future and whether they will be successful or not. I'm not the mom who needs to hep my child grow up to be able to support herself and have a strong sense of self worth. I'm not not mom.

I think pushing and pigeon-holding is both the worst and best thing a parent can do to their child.

As someone who grew up with the knowledge that I wasn't allowed to dream or pursue anything that lit my fancy, I know that being crushed or over directed can lead to a life of frustration and confusion about what might have been. I rarely feel certainty about anything I try to do at which I am not immediately successful, and even less certain that chasing dreams is worth trading in stability. As someone who knows how much being a parent means to me right now, and what I am willing to do and give up to make that happen, I can't imagine that, in the moment, I won't be the most hawkishly protective mother on the planet. As hard as it will be for me to become that mother I want to be right now, I won't want anything but a perfect life for my child. Not all parents who push their children are just trying to live through them vicariously. Many do it out of a fearful love.

I don't know what will really happen. In my early forties, I've come to understand that almost everything I thought I knew about life is wrong. That's not so different from my character, Sorcha. In a moment of uncertainty, she chose the easy fix. She chose the stable answer. She chose not to dream, and not to allow the sliver of her heart that was a seeker of faith to live. In the end, she's as torn as I often find myself, though there are very different sets of choices on our respective tables.

When it comes down to it, the person everyone sees in us everyday is a version of who we are. When our dream self is separated from the person we are for everyone else everyday, nothing we do is authentic.We are just as unreal as a character in a book. The only way we become real is to become concrete in who we are. That's what I'm trying to do with Sorcha--I'm trying to make her as real as she is in my heart, because in making her real, I make a part of myself real.

So when it comes to "making a person," in whatever context you're describing, it really is important to ask who they are, and to support and believe in their answer.

Help I'm Alive--Metric

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