Who are you? 

I asked this question on Facebook yesterday:

Who are you?

I got a variety of answers, and am grateful to the varying degrees people shared a little bit of who they are.

But I had a little bit of some things on my mind that were the real reason I asked the question.

Here’s the context of why.

Last weekend, I finally got to spend some time with my best friend’s daughter down in Anchorage. This was the first I was able to see her since her mom died in March. Birdie was my dear friend for over 35 years.

We shared many memories, shenanigans, being pregnant for the first time, raising kids, falling in love, falling out of love, all kinds of things.

Birdie has been a fixture in my life for all of my adult life.

As we got older, the partying couldn’t be the central focus of our lives anymore.

And for me, when the partying went away, so did the drinking. I drank with my friends, to celebrate, to have fun, and on the rare occasion, to mourn something. As I got older, hangovers became my deterrent and drinking became more dangerous and unpleasant than fun and good times.

But for Birdie, alcohol was her solace.

I don’t know when it became a battle she couldn’t win. I’ve thought of this at least one million and three times. Could I have stopped it? Could I have helped?

I couldn’t have. This was her journey. I am mostly at peace with that.

At least, I thought I was at peace with it until last weekend.

Birdie’s ex-husband had put together some videos for her memorial.

He used to have a video camera in his hands constantly back in our college days and early years of having kids. He graciously spent hours pouring over years of footage.

It became a labor of love as he also grieved his first wife and the images of her aliveness screamed how much of her we will all miss.

I’ve watched these videos at least a hundred times. There were so many good memories awakened, her beautiful smile, her childlike playfulness, her ability to find naughty anywhere. There she was, even though she was gone, I felt like I got to keep a piece of her through these videos.

Over lunch in the beautiful town of Girdwood, I asked K what she thought of the videos. She told me, “I’ve only watched them once.”

Really? This stunned me and I pressed.

She told me it was too painful (okay, I expected this) and then, “I just didn’t know that person.”

Her kids had no idea the person she was when I met her.

They couldn’t.

In a moment, the truth crashed into my soul. Birdie had hidden in her alcoholism for so many years, that I believe none of us really knew her anymore.

And the painful thoughts that have enveloped me in the week since have had me reeling.

What is a legacy? What is it that we leave behind?

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this in the past 12 years since I lost my own parents.

But a new dimension has been added to my meandering thinks.

Did I know my parents? Who were they when they met? What were they like when they fell in love? I’ve always had an image of a couple of kids in Boston, partying in the bars, having some deep talks, pledging to make the world a little better place.

These things are all mostly made up in my head. The granules of truth in the images I have are breadcrumbs mostly from conversations I’ve had with other people.

My experience with my parents was much different than I imagine it was for others.

I keep asking myself why this happens. When do we stop being who we are and turn into something else? When do we lose our zest for life and become zombies pushing through?

This has evolved into wondering if most of us are even aware of this?

Who we are?

And while it’s true that I don’t want to be something FOR someone else, I do think it’s important to show up as who I am.

My core. My soul shining out.

And now I have this huge pain point of wanting to make sure I do that.

That I show up.

That I show up in all of who I am.

I don’t want a video montage of my life showcasing the happier times.

I want to BE in the happiEST times from here to the end.

I’d much rather dance on the stage of my life and present myself as who I am, in all of my dimensions, than to have people trying to piece together a photo collage after I’m dead.

So, who are you? Are you a person that is buried in the mundane, the bills, the stress, the adulting?

Or are you joy, energy, soul, vibrant, and present?

What is the difference between who and what? Is it personality vs. thoughts?

How do we intentionally show up in all of our genuine core?

People can answer in flip ways, but I’ll suggest they are fronting. For whatever reasons we do that, we seem to be afraid to reach into our souls and bare it for the world.

We guard it like it’s a precious diamond (and diamonds are shined up rocks that have value because a diamond company said they do; they don’t have value intrinsically) that we have to keep hidden until we take it out for special occasions.

What might happen if we weren’t afraid to just show up? How would that change our relationships? With others? With ourselves?

I think my friend Birdie didn’t realize she had the authority over her life that she did. People expected her to be drunk and funny, so that’s how she showed up. Until the alcohol started to dictate otherwise.

In the end, the blur between Birdie and her playful vibrant truthful soul and the slurred, bitter and hopeless soul was indistinguishable.

I believe she was doing the best she could. Because no one was really mirroring anything different. We expected her to be drunk and rambling and that’s how we showed up to be with her. That’s my painful truth anyhow.

If I could do it over again, I would make different choices.

I can’t do that now, but for my own life, I can.

So can you.

Thanks for reading this. I hope that I have inspired us all to look a little deeper, to find some courage to let go of a version of ourselves that doesn’t align with our deepest truth of who we are.