"seeking balance to the polar opposites in all of us"

Originally written and posted September 5, 2008 and posted via my MySpace blog...


I'm sure that most of you have heard the Meredith Brooks song "Bitch" where she says "Im a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother..." I've always identified with that song and the multifacetedness of my personality. I've never felt, ever, that I was a simple person. Sure, there are simple things about me... give me a coke, a 75 degree fall afternoon and Dizzle playing in the yard and Im a happy girl... but I'm much, much more complex than that. And for some reason yesterday while Andy and I were playing together (is there ever a time when I'm NOT doing something with Andy) this blog came to me - mostly formed. I let him keep playing while I jotted down ideas as they came to me, and to be honest, they were coming so fast, I can barely read my own notes. The comparison to the Meredith Brooks song only came as I sat down this morning, though... I guess when I really sit down and think it over, this is my own lengthy, non-singable version of 'Bitch.'

Here was my original idea for starting the blog, which I still think is pretty good, so Im still gonna throw it out there.

A year and a half ago, I wrote a poem called "I'm The Girl" which pretty much describes me as I see myself. It was and is pretty accurate and honest and raw, while being rather funny, if I do say so myself. Honestly, that poem hit me while I was pushing the buggy around the grocery store with Andy, trying desperately to keep him entertained while trying to find peas. I found them, came home, and wrote that in about 20 minutes. I haven't done much poetry writing since.... any actually. But I liked that, and liked how honest I was with myself and about myself. Its in this blog... February of 2007.

Now, though, a new introspection is needed. Its time to take a good, hard look at myself again. I look at myself frequently, and believe it or not, I'm alwaystryingto improve. Whether or not I succeed is another story. But I try. I remember my dad telling me when I was very young that driving a car was all about making constant little adjustments. That even when you were going straight, that you constantly had to be on the lookout to make little changes in your course so that you don't run off the road. I try to look at my life like that, at my behaviors and patterns like that. I screw up a lot. A LOT. But I try.

Anyway, thats a long intro to what I'm getting at. Shrek told Donkey that an ogre has layers... but we all do. I think we all have polar opposite aspects to our personality. How many people have you known that were shy, meek and quiet at work... but when you got them out socially, they were completely different? Or the opposite was true? Or how about guys you have known with little man syndrome (a Napoleonic Complex)? Total jerks who couldn't back it up, and knew it...and privately were insecure, frightened, and bullied?

Here's the way I feel about myself.

I'm a soccer mom (as of less than two weeks from now), and extremely proud of it. Its a lifelong dream come true. I adore my son more than anything else on earth. But sometimes I wonder if I don't wrap my motherhood around me like an invisibility cloak to hide my many, many,MANYflaws. I look at him sometimes and wonder when Im going to wake up and look at him and say "whose kid is this?" He holds my hand with his soft, dimpled, trusting hand and I fall in love all over again.

I'm tougher than nails and weak as a newborn kitten at the same time. I am, at the same time, a carefree child, a reckless teenager, a stabilizing twenty-something, and a wizened old woman. Spread among all of those is a healthy dose of fear, especially of the unknown.

There is a part of me that is a bitter, jaded divorcee who was burned beyond recognition by her marriage. The other part of me refuses to give up hope, clinging to an ever-shrinking and fraying thread that there may be someone out there for me, as imperfect and flawed as I am. It does no good to try to convince me that its true - I'm going to have to see it to believe it. I think the hopeful part is going to win out in the end, although the jaded divorcee rears her head after every failed date, asking "why do I keep trying?" When I ask that, the voice of my best friend pops in my head and answers very matter-of-factly - "Because you're a hopeless romantic who can't give up on the thought of love." I have no idea where the balance or resolution will come from to this one...thats a time-will-tell kind of thing. I keep throwing up my hands and giving up, and then the hopeful girl in me goes right out and tries it again. Its an endless cycle - maybe one day Ill figure it out or get it right - one or the other.

So, where is balance to all of this? *IS* there balance to be found? Or do we just do the best we can and deal with the different parts of our personality rearing up as they tend to do as it happens?

I don't know. If I had all the answers, I'd be smart. Obviously, I'm not.

Too damn deep for a Friday morning.