Big Girl Panties

My whole life has been a struggle to define myself in terms I could live with. When I was a little girl, I defined myself by my family, our history and where we had lived. As I got older I still identified myself mostly through my family, but also, I began to define myself by my beliefs, specifically my religious beliefs. When my parents divorced and my definition through them was shattered, I cast around a lot redefining and shaping how I saw myself. My belief in God changed a lot through that as well, became stronger and an even bigger part of who I was. But there was more too me than that. I developed interests, skills and abilities and those things became part of my new definition. No longer defined by my parental relationship, new relationships were part of my definition too. There also grew and interesting secondary definition of who I wanted to be versus who I was and what it would take for me to be that person.

A lot of who I wanted to be had to do with how I wanted people to view me. I wanted to be wise, strong, friendly and respected. Most importantly I wanted to be loved. That was a definition I dreamed of. To be wanted, to be valued and to be cherished.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t loved. My family loves me and I had (have!) some terrific friends who are like family, but there was more to it than that.

Recently I’ve found myself again at a bit of a conundrum about what defines me in some other people’s lives. Who I am to them, who they are to me and who I want to be to them. The answer was that I really wasn’t sure who I was or who I wanted to be based on my relationship with several people who have taken up residence in my heart over the past several years.

Yesterday, the picture snapped clear and I was very happy with the new definitions. There is still that lofty, far off definition of who I want to be to someone someday and it is not fulfilled in any of these relationships, but I am very happy with the relationships around me right now, and they are in themselves fulfilling.

So here is to daughters, big sisters and very good friends.