#defining self

Note: the “ I don’t come from the past, I come from Now” is a Paul Monette quote . He was a gay activist author who died of AIDS in 1995. He wrote about gay life and the devastating impact AIDS had on it.

The following quotes are included in the journal entries above:

4/4/2019 "I could lose my social identity, my physical configuration and my personal history, yet, something will remain the same, outlasting radical vicissitudes." Force of Charachter, by James Hillman

My responding December 18, 2019 margin note:

"My Mission Statement:

I am the family.

I am the government.

I am the employer.

I am the body.

I self define.

I don't come from the past, I come from now.

Pretending to be high

Lowly thoughts drawing me to shore

Should I dream of more

I walk head held high as my mind ends the keening cry

My smile belies the true pain inside

My vibrant eyes make the lie seem truth bold compelling all to hold

Would you ever believe the truth of my inner storms

You see the beauty of the vast dream as my skin slips into the oblivion created solely by me

Created by my wandering

Created as my mask slid only to be remade

Created through hopes lost definitions cast within words of complicated believings

Can you see I stuttered

I knew and still I withdrew

I loved what I hated

I made what I unmade only to make it again

My repetition is the mortar

My slumber the brick

The world's want the artisanal mason

My confusion the sturdiest foundation

Never my fault

I walked in truth

Believed the subtle hues

Danced beneath righteous moons

It is just the culmination of a journey wondrously aimless

Should I move to different cues and walk down more brazen avenues

Just to possibly lose the truest breath that I've always been use to

I walk upon eggshells loud hoping all hear the sound and understand that my mold was made simple just to be seen most completely

My truth is brilliantly obscene

To a world that denies the natural worth residing inside

As rising tides make the mind high and the soul the joy of immaculate times

We are the oil upon the surface of the glistening world

A part of yet separated from

And the slick and the slip our core definition

My world is rainbow hued so that all can walk through

            A song on the radio made a huge impact recently. The premise is that we remake ourselves as we grow, learn and explore. I have definitely done that.             I was an abused child. Both of my parents beat me, humiliated me, isolated me from my peers. My older brother pinched me, kicked me and called me names. My younger sister mocked me, taunted me and regularly lied to my…

Going back as far as my memory allows, my only vision of myself was as the person I was told I was. If my parents said I was dumb, then I was. When my brother said I was fat, I was that as well. If a teacher placed me in the dumb group, then I was that as well. I got to thinking about how we let others define ourselves. It sent me back in time to all the ways and circumstances in which I was who…

There's more to this post than a twist on Johnny Castle's famous line, take a look. It's ime to break out of boxes... or corners.

Photo by Leone Venter on Unsplash

Okay, I have to be honest with you about something… I’ve never actually watched Dirty Dancing all the way through. I mean, who doesn’t know the famous line regarding babies and corners whether or not they’ve seen the movie? It’s a classic.

But what I can tell you I have done, through and through, is something I think we all do without even noticing it.

I’ve put…