Track 12 - Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

I stand in front of a mirror and gaze at the reflection that holds my analytical stare. Who is this man that looks back at me. Do I really know who he is? Recently I read a book that brought up a topic of one’s true name. The protagonist needed to discover his true name to overcome a significant obstacle. A true name in the sense of the book was a name defined by attributes positive and negative that made up one’s self. To learn one’s true name required an absolute understanding of who an individual is. I have been thinking a lot about that question lately. Who am I and am I who I want to be?

Yes, I know who I am in a very superficial sense. I can spout out all my personal stats. I know I was born in Salem, Oregon to Tom and Margi. I have an older sister and three younger brothers. I know that I grew up spending much of my youth playing sports and trying to develop other minor talents such as playing the piano and saxophone and attempting to learn Spanish, an ability that required complete immersion for two years to finally master. As I examine my image in the mirror, I can tell you that I have dirty blond hair and hazel eyes. I am eight pounds heavier than I would like to be and frustrated with my lack of six-pack abs. I can complain about my receding hairline over my temples and how I too frequently enjoy the company of an ingrown toenail on my already unattractive feet. Yes, I can recite my physical stats and pick apart the undesirable qualities as quickly as the next. That is not telling me anything about my true self.

I dive deeper. I know that I love people for all their quirks and intricacies. I make friends easily and generally want to make others happy. I love to entertain and be the center of attention. I worry about being successful and stable a condition directly correlated to being laid off twice in the last three years. I do not worry about exceeding in my employment opportunities but more so over the stability of them. As a result, I spend more and more time setting goals and plans to eliminate economic dependence on a single employer. A desire for a family and children is a subtle dull pain that resides darkly inside and never seems to fully subside but is no match to the bullying and dominate insatiable quest to find the “perfect” helpmate. I am innately good but struggle with temptations and shortcomings. That is closer but it still does not extinguish my curiosity and wonderment.

I guess the question is do I see the same person my mother sees. Am I living up to the potential and being that they hoped I’d be or believe I can be. But, why stop there? Even that is just a perception of a third party that truly cannot control the outcome nor knows who I really am and all the abilities that I should be cultivating. So I go to the top. I want to know if the man I see and am is the same man that God sees and knows I am. Do they match or while I stumble around this work in progress, on lazy feet and with clumsy hands, am I creating a piece of art that one day will fulfill its true measure of it’s creation? I hope so.