When I worked at the Zoo, I found myself completely overwhelmed with unwelcomed questions when I answered the “What do you do for a living?” question with “Zookeeper”.  With such a unique opening answer — I would be bombarded with questions.  “Do you work with elephants?”  “Is it scary?”  “Is it glamorous?” (No, by the way.) “Can I pet the jaguar?” (Always tempted to say, sure….)

I’m not terribly forthcoming when it comes to talking about myself, so I changed my basic answer.  “What do you do for a living?” earned this answer:  I work in downtown Akron.  Result?  Conversation shut down.  Eyes wandering looking for a different conversation.  Assumption of interest…..discarded!

What if you identified to others with the actual thoughts that make up your daily existence?  The honest stuff that is you – regardless of the situation/label/circumstance you are currently participating in?  Think it through.  What is your stuff to claim?

• Old time coffee person.  Mugs with stains, black coffee, poured with company or sipped alone.
• Vocabulary-ist.  A logophile.
• Person who admires the tiny patterns of nature as beautiful.  Think Fibonnaci sequence.  Think tiny leaves.  Fall colors.
• She who touches everything to see if it is soft:  clothes in a store, leaves on a plant, hair on your head, donkey noses, blankets on sale.
• Prayer who asks for guidance before entering a classroom, counting to ten, disciplining a child, answering a question, looking for her keys (again)…….
• One whose brain leaps approximately 12 times in a 5 minute conversation, yet still stays on track and participates.
• Trinket, toy collector.
• She who designs business opportunities for every dream you share with her.
• Person most likely to have 4 books going at the same time – kitchen, living room, bathroom, car.
• One who tires of her own opinion within a conversation before she even expresses the opinion.
• Person who diverts conversation to avoid participating at an uncomfortable level.
• One who treasures deep conversations on a topic of passionate concern to someone.
• She who has an entire world inside her head that is easy to visit, colorfully enjoyable and often times preferred to the actually surroundings.

How different would our interactions be with this information actually spoken and out in the open on a daily basis?  And yet, isn’t it already?

I’m writing right now in my favorite coffee shop.  A crowded, noisy, basically uncomfortable wooden bench spot in the middle of an upscale, yet tiny, private Ohio college campus.  It’s too noisy to actually pick up individual conversations, but the bodies around me tell so many stories.  There’s the young man accepting, reluctantly, heartfelt educational criticism from a, perhaps reasonably, pompous professor/mentor.  A young lesbian couple testing out public affection while pretending to study.  A proud couple sipping coffee with their student daughter who appears to be suffering their overtly affectionate gestures of excitement.  And directly in my line of sight, an introspective sort, furiously typing – eyebrows knit, mouth pursed, coffee getting cold.

I ‘see’ them more clearly with these observations then I would through their answer of ‘Student” to the “What do you do” question.

I desire intentionality in my life.  I’ve spent many a year doing the work of the mother, wife, daughter, employee, boss…..etc. and letting those roles dictate the me that would respond.  It is a style that is effective and efficient.  However, as those roles/labels have dwindled and changed, I started to wonder ‘who I am’.

It turns out that I’m not actually confused about who I am.  I am a bit stymied by my interpretation of self through the roles that I have worn.  If I leave those roles as my definitions of self — then empty nesting, grown children, changing work assignments, and extra time seem like uncontrolled and unwanted experiences.  I wonder how to fill my time.  I fall depressed with change:  unwilling to accept a lack of control over my life.

But that lesson was learned 24 years ago when Abigail arrived 3 weeks early, right as that conference for 300+ (that I was the main organizer for) launched about 2 1/2 hours away!!!  ‘What in the world?’ I lamented!

What in the world, indeed.  What do I know of who I actually am?  When I strip away the parenting me – the employee me — the adult me — who do I stand as?  And, can that be stripped away?  Should that be stripped away?  If all of our experiences form who we are – then it would make sense that the essence of who we are is always present and …… learning?

I started writing on this topic because of a conversation with a beautiful young mom soul who expressed herself in a conversation in this way:

“Unfortunately (at the present time) I don’t fully know who I am without the outside influences….”  She meant – her roles.  And I realized that I agreed with her.  That I felt lost inside my own roles.  AND.  I wanted to tell her that she actually wasn’t lost, at all.

Instead, she is learning.  And growing.  And being redefined, expanded – emboldened – stretched.

We are working in our giftings.  We are standing in roles that are assigned, unwanted, scary, beyond our abilities, difficult, exciting, interesting, boring and down right monotonous.  And through it all we see life the way we were designed (as a distinct individual) to see that life.

Mine is coffee memories.  Observation. Words on a page.  Thoughts in my head.  Time alone in my thoughts. Soft things.  Patterns.  Pets.  And deep, deep love.

And you?  Why, you’re really okay.  And it’s okay to be okay.  We don’t have to be wound up about these changes, you know?  Embrace your now right here beside me.  Let’s be intentional.  Let’s decide to do this life.  With intent.