So the reading this Sunday at Mass from the Old Testament was from the book of Genesis. Maybe this is the first Bible Story we learn. It is the end of Adam and Eve and their paradise of Eden. From this point on their life is normal, mundane. From this point on all they have is death. And it all stems from a snake and a damn apple.
Father Darrell talked about how Adam and Eve had an identity crisis. He said that they forgot that they are a Child of God. They weren’t even considering how much God loved them. They thought they could be different if they ate that apple. Fr. Darrell challenged us to come home and each and every day remind ourselves and the loves in our family that they are a Child of God.
This got me thinking about my own identity. I have struggled with being the person I was born to be for a long time. Through the years I have tried to be someone I never was. I struggled to figure out who I was. Yes, I knew who I was raised to be. I knew that I was Freddie and Carilynn’s middle child. I mean, you couldn’t name my sister or brother without me. We were Kim, Cindy and Kerry. To this day we are Kim, Cindy and Kerry. I resisted being that. I even resisted being Fred and Carilynn’s daughter. I even went so far as to quit being Cindy and made everyone call me Cynthia. I liked her a lot better than Cindy. Then I became Jay and Carilynn’s mom. Then Jimmy’s wife and Katie and John’s mom. And now I am Alexander, Lucy and Anderson’s GrandMaMa. But it has been a long time coming.
Everybody thinks they know who we are, or who we should be. I probably do it too. For instance, I named every one of my children basis who I thought they would become. Jay was going to be a doctor. Carilynn the lawyer. Katie the farmer and John the priest. Why is it that they resisted me and my opinion at every turn? Probably because they never had any interest in those careers. Also, probably because they are so much wiser to themselves than I will ever be. Oh, I know them, they are my children after all. But I don’t necessarily know them, like maybe they know themselves or God would know them. So when they started looking at me and rolling their eyes I quit trying to influence them one way or another. As long as they have an education and a profession then I am happy with that.
But back to me. I always wanted to have long, blond, voluptuous hair. Never going to happen. Every time I grow my hair out I realize that I have thin and wavy hair. It looks scraggly. But I do have a whole lot of body and some wave in my hair. It looks great short. But I don’t want short hair. There are those who think I should dye my hair. I don’t want to. I don’t want to because you have to keep it up and I’m not patient enough to go get my hair colored every month. Thank goodness I never went blond. I would have had a time with the roots. So I’d just as soon go gray. But there are those who think I need to cut and color my hair. No thanks.
I wore school uniforms for 12 years. Almost every day of my life I knew what I was going to wear the minute I woke up. When I went off to college I had the hardest time figuring out what I was going to wear. So I settled on blue jeans and t-shirts. I didn’t look great in jeans and t-shirts. But I was comfortable in them. Today, my favorite clothes are jeans and t-shirts. Sometimes I wear sweats and t-shirts. I really look bad in sweats and t-shirts. But they are so comfortable. So I wear them. But I’ll warn you, I don’t look good. In a professional life you really need to look the part but I’d just as soon wear sweats or t-shirts. Polo shirts don’t look good on me. Button up shirts, I’ve had my fill of them. Plus, they always showed a gap where I didn’t want a gap to show. I wish I was comfortable in khaki’s but I don’t think it will ever happen. Anyway, . . .
So, so far I have long voluptuous hair and I look great in jeans and t-shirts.
Anyway, I’m a busy woman. The times in my life that I have been at my thinnest, and my happiest, I have been so busy I don’t know what to do with myself. And if I chose to, I could be extremely busy. I mean, between the farm, the family and two businesses and all of my hobbies you would think I didn’t have time to think. But, what I am, and what I have always wanted to be is a writer. And unfortunately, a writer has to think a lot. Being busy doesn’t necessarily leave my mind time to wander. And my mind needs to wander. So, I stay busy doing a lot of mindless things. I call them mindless but some of them are so routine that I could probably do them in my sleep. I caught myself a couple of times watching TV, physically watching TV and typing what was on my mind. I could type in my sleep. Easily. I’m sure there are nights that I do. Ha! I like being busy but I really like being able to give my mind freedom to be. A lot of people try to influence me in the professional arena. When there is a job opening I get people calling me telling me I should apply. In the grand scheme of things I’d probably be a lot better off if I did. But, then I wouldn’t have the freedom to write. And let me tell you something, I have to write. I went a lot of years without writing a word because I thought no one would be interested. And there are probably a lot of people today that wouldn’t give me ten cents for what I write. I don’t write for those people. I write for me. But I share my writing for a lot of people. And I get such good feedback that reinforces my writing. If I could write novels like JK Rowling or someone like that I could be a very wealthy woman. But honestly, I write to get it out of my head and my heart. Some stories that I have held onto for years are just now leaving my head even though I’ve told those stories so many times. They were pent up for so long they’re just making sure I have examined them in every way imaginable. Anyway, . . .
So, so far I have long, voluptuous hair, I look great in jeans and t-shirts and I am a writer.
What more could there be? Oh, yeah, I have these wonderful children and amazing husband. Amazing is my daughter, Katie’s word. But he really is amazing. And you all know him and like him. I was married before Jimmy. I was married for ten years. When I divorced I wasn’t sure that I would ever marry again. There are definite advantages to being married, especially if you are a single mother. As a single mother you don’t get to do anything without the kids in tow. You don’t get to run to the drugstore. You don’t get to go to the bathroom. You never have any money. But there are so many advantages. You get to decide how these children are going to be raised. You don’t have to argue with anyone about the job you are doing raising them. You don’t have to share them one minute except for the times that they are with their dad. So when Jimmy came along I looked at the advantages of raising my kids with two parents. I think the main reason that I decided to remarry was that I wanted my kids to see how a marriage was actually supposed to work. I think in doing that they were able to decide what kind of relationship they wanted when it was time they married and they both chose wonderful spouses, better than I could have picked for them. But I remember thinking about marriage that I didn’t want to live somebody else’s life. I had tried that but I didn’t like the person that I had become. I am here to tell you that Jimmy probably came closer to living the life I wanted than the life he wanted. He was just lucky in that I wanted to live on a farm, in the country. I think that’s what he wanted too.
So, so far I have long, voluptuous hair, I look great in jeans and t-shirts, I am a writer, I am a proud mother and I am a loved wife. That should all be enough, right?
Wrong. It’s not enough. There’s something else there. The something else that’s there is the thing that enables me to be all of those things. I am a Child of God. And if I hadn’t gone to God and told him that I really sucked at life and I really needed him to take my pitiful life and give me the life I was born to live, I would not have any of these remarkable things in my life. Okay, I still don’t have the long, voluptuous hair and I don’t look great in jeans and t-shirts, but I am a writer and a mother and a wife. And if I have those things then I have it all. Yes, I would love to write a best seller because that’s the kind of money you would have if you won the lottery. I would love all four of my children to become the people they want to be and not have one more thing in their life to make them cry. I would love to be able to love Jimmy until we are both well into our 90’s and that I die one day and he dies the next. Yes, I would love to tell God how I want the rest of my life to go but I really get my feelings hurt when he stands there and laughs at me. So, I’ll tell you that being a child of God is all that I need. Because if you are child of God then he’ll take care of all of the other things and let you just sit back and enjoy them. He will. He has.
So, all those other identities I have don’t mean squat unless I go back to the very beginning, to before I was Katie and John’s mom and Jimmy’s wife and Jay and Carilynn’s mom and Kim and Kerry’s sister and Freddie and Carilynn’s daughter, to the moment I was conceived in their love. Because at that point I was also a child of God and as His daughter I was born into His love. Lucky me.