About Me (continued)...

I ended my last post about me with my children.  It seemed appropriate to stop there because so much of who I am is about them.  My time is spent caring for them, or preparing to care for them, or cleaning up after caring for them.  My heart and mind is consumed with them, their plans, their daily strife and pleasures and with helping to pave the path of their lives.  It's the largest defining part of me.

But, of course, it's not all of me.  And while the rest of who I am is smaller and often takes a back seat to raising young children, it's also the loudest part of who I am.

So second in my definition of me would be my wife, K.  She and I have been loving each other for nearly 16 years.  Our meeting anniversary, which was have always celebrated as the moment our love took shape, happened in October of 1997.  I was 18, she as 22 and we were way to young to have any idea what to do with the intense love we found in each other.  It was so sudden and completely inconvenient.  We lived in different states, we had well-defined plans for the next few years of our lives and she had a girlfriend.  None of these things stopped us, despite our trying to prevent all that happened.  We were on and off, hot and cold, in and out.  Except, when the day was done and the night hit that dark, quiet place, it as each other we craved and nothing, ever, had changed that.  We built our friendship in the early years, because we were long distance for 5 years.  We lived in the same geographic location for a year once we both graduated and then finally moved in together 10 years ago.  We began the process then of matching our lives to our hearts and we braided all that we are together.  There is no yours and mine with us...it is ours and we are an us.  I am not always happy about this, and neither is she.  We are honest in our trials and we mean it when we say there are days, weeks...even months...where we nothing more than to cut the ties and run far and fast.

But we don't.  And that is the heart of the definition.  I married her.  I stood in a foggy grove last year and promised her all of my tomorrow, and despite whatever challenges may come, I meant it.  I'm not sure what could break us after so long, because each time I think we are broken, we renew.  I don't know what is about her, or about our love, but I'm in.

And this is where it gets hard.  I can easily define myself in terms of them.  They are at the very, very heart of me and without them, I am not me.  And yet...there is always, and has always been, a persistent voice that reminds me (sometimes forcefully) that I am more than the lubricant and stability in the lives of  three other people.  There are parts of me that exist, and would continue to thrive, without them.  The voice under it all that is uniquely mine that nobody else touches or defines.  It is this voice that I think truly defines ME, but it is hardest one for me to honor.  I don't think that is an unusual phenomenon.  What I do think is unusual is that I acknowledge it, and don't apologize for it, and attempt to make space for those parts in an already full-to-the-brim life.

How do I describe those parts of me?  How do I tell you about my humor, which is sarcastic and often dances on the razor edge of acceptability?  Do I tell you about my stubbornness or my drama?  Do I share that I have huge insecurities about my body, but I am completely in love with it and how it has taken me through 34 years?  Do I talk about my love of sex, all things sex, all things deviant and dirty?  Do I explain my love of risk-taking and the darker side of my personality that demands attention some times?  Do we talk about my politics or the fiery passion that erupts every time elections roll around?  Do I share with you my complete lack of filter and how much I love that about me?

I don't know where to start.  I am intense.  I never feel something weakly.  I'm either all in or I'm not interested.  I like to know the dirty details, the nitty gritty.  I love other people's stories and I love hearing other people's perspective on my life.  I take what others say to me and roll it around, see how it feels.  I listen and offer opinions.  I truly love and care for the people in my life.  Once you are inside the inner circle, there is nothing I won't do for you.  I am selfless to a fault and I try to offer my best to the world, even when it is not returned.  I give gifts, I cherish my friendship and I enjoy the little crushes that develop when I meet truly interesting people.

I don't believe in monogamy, but I live by the rules of monogamy because my marriage would fail if I did otherwise.  I am not religious in any way...at least not in the Christian sense of the word.  I don't believe in God and I am not afraid of death.  I think the most interesting people I meet are those who look the part but live differently...with no other definition than that.  I am not interested in the image projected, but rather the person under all of the fake bullshit.  I seek out real and crave honesty.

What you'll get from me is probably too much.  I am a bull in a china shop, and I am unapologetic about that.  I also struggle from time to time, worrying that I am too much and I secretly fear that most people would rather have me out of their lives rather than in.  Sometimes I hide behind my own bullshit because it's easier than standing in my truth.  Sometimes I hate me.

There is always a split in my life - there are the things I do and the things I feel and think.  Often, these things don't match up or the crossover happens in weird and seemingly disconnected ways.  I think that a stranger would look at me and see a nice, heterosexual, youngish mother with lots to do.  I hope they would see my smile and feel welcomed into my life.  I hope they would notice my warmth and my openness to new experience.  Mostly, I hope that when those strangers become friends and then close friends that they would see the gritty, hardcore, drama-loving, woman-adoring lesbian under the facade.

I often feel like the best parts of me are lost in the requirements of my life.  I always feel anger when I feel that way.  If there is area I struggle with, it is this.  It is in the honoring of who I am outside of the family we created and support.  I struggle with accepting that I will fail them sometimes and with knowing that it's okay to choose my needs first on occasion.  I don't do that well.

My last definition of me is you.  I am changed by the people I choose to keep in my life.  I listen to the people around me because I trust that you have something to offer my life.  I truly believe that we have something important to bring to each other's lives or we wouldn't have met.  So share your truth with me.  I'll share mine.