It Is What It Is

While some people go through life taking it out on others, I have spent my life fighting to be me. I envy those who have their own “brand,” their own identification not associated with their parents, their siblings, their spouses, their offspring, their job. How refreshing it would be to just be … me.

This week, I gave a gift to a colleague because she asked me if I would make her a scarf like the one I wore to school. Sure, I said, and spent my TV time this week crocheting her a design I created. I wrapped it with tissue, tied the package with a bow, and put it in her cubby at work, hoping that she would like the end product of my endeavors.

The endless thank you cycle annoys me. She called my room and said thank you, and then asked if she could pay me for the item. No, it was my pleasure to create this item for you: wear it and enjoy it. Oh, I couldn’t do that: at least let me take you out for drinks. No, I seldom drink. Then, what about dinner? No, I made you the gift because you admired my scarf and asked about one for yourself. I am pleased that you like my handiwork, so wear the scarf and enjoy it. Oh, I can’t do that: I have to give you something for it!

I also received an email, and then a cutesy card expressing her gratitude, and then a mutual friend added her thanks from the recipient, who told her to be sure and thank me if she saw me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Some people need the endless enthusiasm of constant reinforcement, but I just need to be acknowledged sincerely, and then I move on. I don’t like standing in one place as I’m not the person today that I was yesterday, and I pray that I become yet another iteration tomorrow. Each day that I walk into the classroom is a new beginning, and I try conscientiously not to bring the baggage of yesterday with me. Some days it’s harder than others, especially when a particularly nasty confrontation occurs, but I know that my clients are kids, that they haven’t yet learned the basics of socially acceptable behavior, so I move on. If there truly is no harm, then there’s no reason for the foul: we don’t shoot penalty free throws in education.

In my personal life, however, it’s been a series of fouls and penalty shots, so as I face the late autumn/early winter of my time on earth, I feel battered from all the physical contact under the basket. I’ve spent my life as a guard, not as a shooting forward, so I’ve taken more than my share of elbows. Unfortunately for my game, people have been able to drive through me and dribble around me, and then score at my expense, so I don’t have impressive numbers in the win/loss statistical database.

For the past decade, since an especially nasty two years of my life led to a complete upheaval and change for me, I’ve worked hard to just be who I am, rather than living up to other people’s expectations and/or perceptions of who they need me to be. I seldom ask anyone for anything, but I’ve had to ask several times in the last few years, only to find that the old adage “ask and you shall receive” is not always up and running in my life.

I’m struggling right now, feeling an inner need to do something else, something I cannot define, but feeling the pressure to leave well enough alone. I looked at volunteering overseas, but had not understood that I must pay for all expenses except actual living expenses while in a foreign country. I’ve thought about volunteering for a literacy program, working with the Boys & Girls Club, becoming a den mother again (den grandmother?), but then I realize that all I’m doing is thinking about doing my job again—and losing myself in the process.

This is more difficult than I thought it would be, figuring out who I am and what my needs are on the journey to the end of the time allotted to my soul in this lifetime. The nagging sense of not being finished leads me to believe I am missing something essential, but my stored memories aren’t accessing that information yet, so, for now, it is what it is. I’ll wait to see what it’s going to become.