All of this sifting through possessions and selling my home have gotten me thinking about my identity. Self-identity is a uniquely human trait, a sum of many things that defines who we are. I started off with an obscured identity, one attached to the circumstances of my birth and subsequent adoption. I had another name, another birth certificate. I firmly believe (along with most other adoptees) that this caused a fundamental scar that has, in many ways, defined my identity more than any other factor. In adoption literature, this has been called the \”primal wound.\” Very often it is one of the first things people learn about me.
Another event that has defined my identity was a fall from a tree when I was seven. I cannot hide that I am deaf in my left ear for long, nor do I try. It has impacted my life on a near daily basis for fifty-five years. One of the top hearing specialists in the country(the son of one of my dad\’s neighbors in Tucson) did an informal test one night after we had eaten dinner. He said that even if they could restore some ability to hear in that ear, my brain had forgotten how to hear on that side. Isn\’t that amazing, that the brain could forget something so fundamental? Three years ago, when I was fifty-nine, I got a tattoo of the mute symbol inked behind my left ear. This indelible mark is an announcement that my deafness is a permanent fixture of my identity .
I\’m a straight, mostly white woman. I have a BA in Anthropology and an MFA in Creative Writing. I\’m a mom of one and a daughter. I currently have Lyme disease. I like movies, books, cleaning, cooking, reading and swimming. These are all markers of my identity that I most often want people to know about me. I don\’t identify as English or Hispanic or Catholic or Jewish or descended from (blank). Those labels hold no interest for me. My genetic background is too complicated for explanation, and I belong to the atheist tribe, a highly fragmented group.
It\’s also not by accident that no possessions or places are on this list. Both of those things are complicated. I\’m from a lot of places but not really. I was born in Texas spent 39 years there. I\’ve lived in Louisiana, North Carolina, and now Colorado. I\’ve always had possessions, and like many of you, have collected more and more of them as time goes on. I\’ve gotten a lot of pleasure out of most of them (not cars, though. I am not interested in cars at all except as a means from point A to B). I can tell you when I bought this or that, and I take care of them. But what does where I am from and what I own say about me? I am a Texan by default. My relationship with Texas is complicated and I don\’t consider myself to be a Texan. Many of my possessions were acquired during my 29-year marriage, a time that doesn\’t please me to be reminded of anymore.
The truth is, neither of these things are that important to me. However, there is a slightly larger than small place inside of me that cares about my identity as defined by possessions and places. In America, besides what you do, where you are from and what you have managed to acquire are two of the most basic facts people use to show their self-identity and their ability to be firmly rooted in life. Most of us have proud pictures of ourselves or someone in our families in front of their houses. Sometimes the people are standing next to their new cars. People proclaim \”I\’m a New Yorker,\” or \”Atlanta born and raised,\” as if this makes them a member of a tribe. To not have things, or belong somewhere, is to be pitied, as if you have not done what is expected. And so I doubt my intuition that tells me that now is my time to shed both and go forth into the world.
Another part of me, that nagging voice of insecurity, says that the time to reinvent has long passed me by. That I\’m too old, or that I should be content with what I have and where I am. My intuition says loudly and insistently to fuck that noise.
I hate the adage \”age is nothing but a number.\” It is misused, trotted out as a paragon to healthy living and/or a firm denial of the reality of aging. The reality is that we do age in spite of our best efforts. No one truly knows how long they are going to be able to do all of the things they\’d like to do. At our last meeting, my dad\’s financial advisor had to ask me \”what the life expectancy is for people with chronic Lyme disease.\” I don\’t know, nor does anybody else seem to know. The CDC sticks with its\’ assertion that even with \”post-Lyme disease syndrome\” one can expect to be fully well in less than a year. They are full of shit. But they\’re not studying outcomes, either.
I want adventure before I\’m forced to shrink my world due to the vagaries of aging. The truth is I can\’t manage the energy to have it all anymore, especially with the ever-present specter of relapses. I\’m not even sure I want it all. My hope is that this great purge clears the way for a larger life with less things and a clear sense of who I am.
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