What I Am

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I represent to others, and I recognize that it's a lot of things.

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For some people I represent The Answer. I am the authority that holds the knowledge that gives insight.  For other people I am The Power. I hold the keys to the doors that get you toward what you need and away from what you hate. They do not see me. Their thoughts tell them all they need to know.

Some people believe I am The Innocent.  I am a youthful representation of freedom and ignorance. When some see my size, stature, and appearance, they assume I am without wisdom, skills, or know-how. They don't hear me. Their perception tells them who I am.

There are those who see me as The Maternal. I am The Savior. I am The Nurturer. I am the person who holds people when they cry. I am the one who makes everything all better. Then I am the one who flees when there's a need. I am The Abandoner. I am The Perfect Bitch. I am the Spoiled Child. I am The Privileged One. There are those who believe I represent everything they are not or cannot have. I am a reminder of pain and misfortune. They have no sense of me. Their history and experience forms their impression of me.

There are also those in my life who clearly see me as The Hope. I have been inexplicably called The Favorite in a variety of realms. I represent Something That Could Be. I have the skills or the prowess to turn things around, to enact change, to make things better. These people hear me selectively. I cannot ask them for help, because they do not perceive me to need it.

There are others who perceive me as The Needy. The Distant. The Reactive. The Disengaged. The Nosey; Over-involved.

I am a variety of things to a wider variety of people. I am The Projected. The Absent. The Superimposed.  I spend the vast majority of my day, my week, and my life filling the role I am assumed to have given the situation, relationship, and context. I represent what I am to individuals, groups, and systems. I try my best to work with this, but it is so moment to moment, that much of my life I find myself assessing what I am in each specific scenario, and I forget to ask myself what I truly represent.

Representing so much to so many, leaves me forgetting who I actually am. What is my role to me? What do I want to be? Who am I to me? Who even knows?