The Missing Page

I’m a runner, not a fast one – quite possibly the slowest runner you have ever seen – but I am a runner. That’s part of who I am. I am also a writer, a student, a hamster care-taker, a wife, a daughter, a sister. I am a dreamer, a Taurus, a dragon, a fearless warrior, a frighten wallflower. All of these things define, who I am, from the inside and out and yet, I’m often lost within myself. I struggle a lot with becoming the person I want to be and I struggle trying to find out why I want to be that person.

I have this idea in my head, of who I ought to be. Someone that cares, someone that achieves, someone that reaches goals, someone that is persistent and compassionate. I want to be all of these things and many more. I have struggled with trying to find out who I was since I was 14.

I always thought, that by the time I was 25, I’d have a good job and a sound education, that I would be politically engaged as well and that I would already know, who I was and that I would have it all figured out. Silly 14-year old me, thought the older, much wiser me, would know, what to do. Well, turns out, she doesn’t. Not even a little bit.

In the back of my head, I feel the pressure of having to change, for the better (whatever that means). I guess it stems from one of my all time favorite songs from Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”, not only is it a catchy tune, but I absolutely love the lyrics:

“I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror,
I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change”

Making a change… That’s what I ought to do.

I think, trying to figure out, who we are and how to make that change is like reading a book without all its contents. Many times you get by skimming the pages, but what if all of a sudden a page is missing? What if you go from a princess living in fear of her own shadow to her becoming a strong-minded, independent heroine that lived happily ever after without knowing how the transformation happened? What do you do then?

I don’t really know, what you do then, my best guess is, try to find a different copy of the same book and read the missing page, but when it comes to my life? Well, I guess, I have to do what everyone else does, trying to become smarter, trying to be more engaged, see what defines me and then throw all of it over board and do a 180 degree course correction, because thankfully, there is no right or wrong in this scenario.

For the longest time I thought that every decision I made was already predetermined, that who I was is who my parents taught me to be. The only flaw in this theory is, that my parents always let me make my own decisions from a very young age (what to wear, when to go to bed, what to eat or not to eat… And yes, some of these decisions ended in disasters!), and I don’t know if you ever dealt with any small kid, but let me tell you, I was unpredictable and sometimes and I still am, going form 1 to 100 in less than 30 seconds and back again, that’s just who I am.

What does that have to do with you? Well, I believe we all struggle with this idea of who we are and why. Unfortunately it’s not just fictions superheroes in Marvel comics that battle their demons, we all have our battles to fight.

But if you struggle as much as I do, here is my suggestion to you, get your pen and paper (or your preferred electronic device, on which you take notes on) and get working. Even if you’re not a writer, I urge you to write your own story. Fill in the blanks of your own missing page and then change it once, twice, a hundred times, because, as with every work where we put our heart and soul in, it will never be quite finished and that’s okay. As long as you keep working at it, and as long as you work towards your goals, you can be proud of yourself and write your own missing page.