Who Am I?

"My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked,
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke,
When I think about myself."
-Maya Angelou

Yesterday's post got me thinking about how my idea of self has altered since the accident, which made me realise that any injury or acquired disability is an assault or, at the very least, a challenge to the self.

But what is the self? Who am I? Who are you? Are you your idea of yourself or something else?

How does our self-image relate to the reality of who we are? Does it relate? Does it matter if our idea of who we are is vastly different than others' idea of who we are?

My idea of who I was changed drastically during my recovery. For years I was what I could do. I was my intellect. I was my achievements. I was my talent. I was my ability to stay up for three days and get ANY project done at the last minute.

Now... all that has changed. Or, at least it feels different from the inside. None of those things feel the same as they did before. Now, I feel as though I am my injuries. I am my story. I am my limitations.

At the same time, I understand that most people who meet me can't immediately tell that there is anything wrong with me. Some of them never notice. On one level that is a relief. I still pass as "normal". On the other hand, my injury is invisible. No one knows how hard things are for me now. No one knows unless I tell them, and often, that just feels like complaining.

I'm caught in that no-man's land of non grievously injured enough to be an inspirational recovery story, and walking away unscathed. I'm stuck with a life, and a self that has been irrevocably changed. Perhaps in some ways for the better, in others, definitely for the worse.

I cannot deny that I have been changed by this experience. Perhaps the most difficult thing to accept is that change is inevitable, even we are changeable. We tend to think that we will always be as we are. Or at least, that if we change, it will be by our choice. That's just not the case. Change comes, whether we are prepared or not. Do we move with it, and choose the outcome, or fight the inevitable, changing against our will while desperately clinging to the idea of what we were?

*** Blog Contest: Download, print and color the image in this entry and email it to lmestishen@comcast.net. Be sure to include your name and address. The winner (my choice, obviously, gets a copy of one of my favorite books.