Embracing the inner-loser I call "Me"
For decades I have been trying to "find myself", and as I am just weeks before the 40th anniversary of my entrance into this world, I think I am finally able to comfortably assign a word that best describes and defines all that has become of me. My roles and names have been many. I have been daughter, I have been student, I have been nurse, employee, wife and mother. I have been annoying little sister and anti-social neighbor. I have been drunk I have been whore, I have been the cause and reason behind a suddenly shut door. I have been called psycho and bitch, and just as frequently I have been called best friend and free therapist. The titles given to me have been plenty, and yet oddly enough, I have lived a life that leaves me feeling as if I'm entitled to so little. [I can't help but think: Abundance brings poverty, especially if we are cursed by our blessings.]
I believe the contradictions in my own life-experience began soon after my mother had me named and baptised, only to be sent away with a complete stranger. In all honesty, when safety and security gets lost, and it gets replaced with something that hurts and damages... how can a person not feel like a loser?
I have often wondered had my Aparents kept my given name, would I be the same as I am right now? Had I been adopted by people who did not hurt me, would my essence still be the same? In any case, I have two names that have been chosen for me by parents who at one time loved me. Wanda or Kerry... where is my identify if I feel no connection to the words describing me? It's taken me years of soul-searching to realize neither name reflects the one element of consistency that has defined my life: loss. I have lost many things that cannot be regained... so when I think about who and what I am, I actually find comfort knowing I am a self-defined loser, with much to offer those who dare to stay.
I like knowing I'm going to begin the next decade of my life understanding who and what my personal origins are. I am a giver who expects loss as part of the exchange. In fact, because I am embracing the inner-loser in me, I am beginning to see how compassion, sensitivity, acceptance and humility have kept me strong. After all, when gains turn to losses, and losses turn to gains, I have always known deep in my heart, mind and soul, "this too can change".