The Infinite Stranger

Photo - Lighpaint by Temple Playgrounds

I don’t know who I am anymore.

Maybe it’s rediscovering.

Maybe it’s integration.

Maybe it’s falling in love.

I went through so many heartbreaks,

désillusions,

shedding,

dismemberments,

dissolving.

I let go.

I repatterned.

I cracked open

so many times —

again and again.

In the past years, I lost and found myself

infinitely.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

I meet myself in familiar contexts, and me feels different.

Hi stranger, I say.

I am the experiencer, the witness, and the beloved all at once.

When did I become this person?

Integrated, held, self-reliable,

vulnerable but stable —

someone who doesn’t need others to approve of who I am?

In the past year, my heart has broken so many times I’ve lost count —

from pain, joy, grief, laughter.

And so many deaths

reshaping the deepest layers of who I am,

redefining my way of relating,

my attachments,

my way of caring and loving.

And I find myself surprised when affected —

Is that it?

Did I become numb, dissociated?

But I feel. So much, still.

I still know love, hurt, joy, sadness.

And sometimes anger, fear, and shame.

Yet it doesn’t drown me.

And I keep falling in love —

mostly with myself.

My heart knows now:

I can’t die from the pain of heartbreak.

That vulnerability takes courage, but it doesn’t kill.

And cracking myself open again and again

is just another way of surrendering to God.

There is something so relieving in not knowing who I am anymore.

The non-attachment to what defines me.

I can be everything, and anything.

What do you want me to be?

How does Life want to move me?

Where am I called to be in service?

And in a prayer, I kneel —

I am yours,

Life.

Use me.