If someone asked you to tell them who you are...would you be able to do that? And if so, what exactly would you say to them? I've been through many seasons in my life which called for me to take on different roles during those seasons. Do you define yourself by the role you play in the seasons of your life? Who are you when there are no roles to play? These are questions I'm asking myself lately and pondering the answers to. The roles I "played" in my life no longer need me in those "starring roles" and I have come to realize that although these roles were part of what made me who I am...they are not me and yet many times in starring in these roles of the seasons of my life...I buried myself so deep in these roles...that now I'm not sure who the real me is anymore. But I'm doing my best to rediscover who I am...how about you?
I;m kinda in the same position as you @Babs Hunt , having just recently retired... and daughter living overseas, and with medical issues ..I'm questioning my role in life now...
But before we had roles to play in the seasons of our lives @Holly Saunders...we were just who we were. It's that person I'm trying to rediscover....not the new or old roles I can still play in my life. How about you?
yes but you see @Babs Hunt , in my mind or at least in my life.. I've always had a role to play from being born... daughter, sister, student, girl guide, surrogate mother to my siblings... then older.. someone who worked for a living, an active mother a wife, .(twice)... Now I think...what now...what can I be ..in my past I always WAS something whether for good or bad...how can I refer back to being something I never was , or never could be again if you see what I mean..
That's a big part of the problem we ask ourselves: "What role or purpose can I play now?" ...instead of taking time to think who we are now and what do WE really want to do with the rest of our lives?" Not what role others want us to play, etc. but who we are now and what do we want?
I know what I want....I just will never be able to achieve it..not now, it's too late... so I have to just live the life I've ended up with and make the best of it
Well even if you think you could never achieve it...if it's really what you want...why wouldn't you go for it! And I'd love to know what the real "you" wants to do for you and not for everyone else.
I'm getting to a point where nobody really needs me as they once did...even the youngest are all in school now. Pickles needs me but that's about it. I have mixed feelings about a partner. Sometimes I wish I had someone to do things with but then I think do I really want someone in my space telling me how long I can be on the iPad Or doing their laundry and cooking for them and also heaven forbid being a caretaker again...to do that like I did for my husband I would REALLY have to love them a lot. It was a tough year...his last one.
Both of you are asking the very questions that I am, and I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone asks the same questions at different and many times in each of our lives. Isn’t that what all the philosophy is really about? It’s just asked in so many ways. Three years ago this December, when I realized my family was gone, and that no matter how hard I tried, or wanted it, I could not hold onto what I had or who I was. I was gone too. I thought the Ina I was had died as well, and in a way this was true. I even felt that I had never had a real chance to be an individual. I went straight from puberty to being responsible for so many others. Then at 40, all those that I felt made up who I was started to leave me and this world behind. The day I lost my husband, I was so shocked, that I felt I couldn’t find me. I felt that I had never had a me. I had only been a part of others. I am starting to understand that I always have been who I am. Basically I still think and feel in much the same manner as I did at ten. Yes, those ways changed as I grew, but deep down, I still have the same needs. I am starting to see this period in all of our lives, (every one of us), as a time to weed out the chaff we have accumulated, and I think what is left is pretty much who I/we were to begin with, but maybe a bit wiser, if we’re lucky.
Even when those you love are still present on earth you can lose them....and it hurts because we can't get them back anymore than those who have lost their loved ones through death often times. But no matter who you lose on this earth or through death....you don't have to lose yourself and life can go on when you are ready to walk forward again.
@Babs Hunt This is a great question to ponder. Not sure I could answer it clearly either. I kind of like the idea that I'm no longer anyone's role model. Family knows who and what I am, as do most of my friends. Time now to relax and let down my guard some. Give people my real opinion instead of the one that 'fits' whatever 'role' I might have been playing. Most of the roles I've played were straight down the line. Follow the rules, coloring inside the lines. Conformity. The role I'd like to take up now would be 'Eccentric'. Dressing weird, quoting famous authors as an answer to whatever question is asked, singing show tunes while waiting in lines... I might get away with it because it's an old persons game, not for the young!
Gosh! Yes, you are understanding @Tim Burr...thank you for sharing. We are not born into the roles we end up playing....we start off as a person who is "one of a kind" ...and if we can let go of the roles we once had to play...we can once again find who we were from the beginning and who we will leave this earth being!
You're lucky @Tim Burr I don't think I can be who I really want to be...my kids are in my way. Every move I make I think of how it affects my kids. That's one reason I loved living Hungary for those 6 years....my family was far far away and I did as I wanted. Those were my wild years since I didnt have any as a teen.
Before I had my kids I did "anything" I wanted to do because I felt I had no responsibility to anyone but myself and in many instances I was "searching" for who I was....sometimes in all the wrong places. After I married and had children...my heart told me I didn't have the right to just consider what I wanted to do anymore and I adjusted "me" to this without any problems. Now I have a husband and I am finished raising my children, who by the way seem to have no problem living their lives as they see fit. This is showing me...I am now free to "be me" again...and I'm contemplating this now like I'm going for a degree in it.