Real Me

Some days I'm stuck just being the real me. Most days I'm not. Most days I have an ideal of who I'd like to be and I can at least muster up an attempt at being "that guy". What's interesting to me is that who I want to be changes from day to day. Some days I want to be a sweet and gentle and my demeanor shows it. Other days I tend toward smart and witty. There are days I wake up trying to be goal oriented. Those days I am focused and I work to achieve. Sometimes I am the encouraging happy face on every one's day. But there are days, days like yesterday, when I don't seem to have it in me to try to be anything or anyone other than just me.

I'm the type who likes variety. If you know me well, you know that I change my furniture layout at least once a month (usually when I'm vacuuming under things anyway). My clothing choices never seem to fit into any certain style category. I'm eclectic with what I wear. I work part time at a job where everyday there are differing responsibilities and tasks, most of which tend toward the creative. I love people. I love all kinds of people, even the people who drive most other people crazy, just because I think it's fun to be around someone new and different. If you were to try to get a glimpse of who I am by my DVR schedule you might think you'd happened upon a schizophrenic. The flip side to all this is that I very quickly grow tired of things.

One of the things I grow tired of fastest is me.

Okay, don't freak out and start posting about how wonderful I am and telling me how much I have to live for. I have never been, and I have a feeling I never will be, one to struggle with the darker, lonelier mentalities. I am not depressed and I don't have tendencies toward it. And to be honest I'm not really even being that hard on myself. I'm just saying that I very quickly grow tired of the same old thoughts that knock around in this same old head on any given day. I guess that's why I choose to try to reflect the ideals of who I would like to be so often rather than settling for boring old me.

Yesterday, the day I didn't have it in me to be anyone but me, people kept asking if I was okay. At first I would try to come up with something. I thought about why I might seem "off" and came up with several options. "I just started my cycle." " It's the second snow day in a row." "My coworker is driving me crazy." All of these were true, but I also quickly realized that the biggest issue was that I was just being myself, so when the next person asked me if I was okay I asked a question in return. "Sure. I'm fine. Can I ask though, do I seem unhappy, or upset, or crabby somehow?" She replied kindly, "No. You're just.... different. You're..... quieter I guess."

It was shocking to me. If you know me in real life you know that quiet is not how most people would EVER describe me. I'd like to think of it as "effervescent" or "lively". But the truth is most days I border on too much. This day though, I was basically being told that to be myself was to be quiet. Now, sometimes I am quieter on the days I'm feeling crabby; mostly because I don't want to rip any one's head off, but I wonder if being quieter isn't also just more the real me than anything else.

I think to some extent or another we all have an ideal version of ourselves that we at least attempt to bring to fruition from time to time. I think that's okay as along as we're drawing from an authentic place. I mean, to some degree we all have the basis for lots of moods and demeanors inside of us. Developing those traits we like best about ourselves is not, in and and of itself, a bad thing. But if we get to the point where we don't even recognize our truest selves, perhaps we've gone too far.

I'm not sure how much of who I am from day to day is real and how much is just me trying to be the best I can be. And at some point perhaps the struggle of that is the most real version of myself.

For that matter I'm not sure how much of the quiet me I can really handle either. But it might be interesting to find out.

When it comes right down to it though, I have a sense of peace about all of this. Because in the end I'm really just a reflection. On bad days, good days, loud days or even quiet days, I'm a reflection of glory. I don't have to do it perfectly or "be" anything because He'll use it all. Yes, He's that powerful.