CIRCLES AND PATTERNS, Here There And Back Again...and Again

When I was little I loved being me. Best part was that I didn't know any different. I was Nancy and I was pretty sure the World started when I came in to it. 

The sky with all of those lovely colors was there because I love colors. Made sense it was there to make me happy. 

The Sun was there because it kept me warm and the rain was there because I loved to run through puddles, especially in my Sunday best shoes, and because I really, really loved thunderstorms. The bigger and louder the storms the better. 

Life was there because I was there. Never occurred to me that there was anything called History, that my parents and grandparents may have had lives before me. They were, I was and that was just enough, just right, just perfect.

And then I went to school. It was a huge, to me, building full of other little "me's" who thought the same way. It was a startling revelation and a bit disappointing too. Turns out I wasn't the only little girl or the only Nancy. There were other Nancy's. They had my name! I was not amused. 

I went home after that first day and pronounced that I was done with school. I had learned all that I needed to learn there. I was ready for the world at large. Of course my parents, the teachers and all of the other adults (who I thought came in to being for me!) had other ideas. 

It was my first introduction to the idea that I was not necessarily the center. 

I tried on different ideas of who I might be, some of which got me in to trouble. When I burped the alphabet,  I paid my first visit to the Principal's office. The teacher had asked if any of us knew our alphabet. I raised my hand. And when she asked me to recite it I did, just the way my Grandpa had taught me to. Technically I did exactly what she requested. Unofficially I was now the Class Clown and a Hero. I completely cracked everyone up, even the teacher who struggled with not laughing. 

Score! Now I was smart and funny. I was one of the smallest kids in my class and I knew how to swallow air and burp the alphabet! UP until then I was not easily noticed, had a tendency to recede in to the surroundings while I watched, with complete surprise, all of those other "me's" as they jockeyed for position in a classroom with too many kids in to small a space. There were so many of us!

And that firm belief that everything centered around me began to change. The World was bigger than I thought, too big really. And there were people to be weary of. They were not kind, did not have my safety or interests in mind. And sometimes they hurt me and other people. 

And sometimes they were kind, loving and for no reason except they were just that, kind and loving, empathetic. And they began to show me that it was OK to be my own kind of person. They gave me paint, paper, crayons and pencils, scissors and tape and glue and encouragement. There were teachers along the way who said, " Good. That was well done. Keep going. You can do this. " And when the follow the rules people came along there was always someone who laughed at my jokes, asked for one of my pictures, loved it when I read to them with made up voices. And even when I was afraid and by myself later I could still hear those voices telling me, " You can do this!"

And somewhere along the way it occurred to me that it wasn't me it was all about. And it was me. And it wasn't. And it was...and wasn't...was...wasn't and was. 

And here I am, Nancy in the middle, always seeing both sides and then having to choose because not choosing means standing still. Stagnant has never worked well for me. And making some choices hurts so I end up back at ME. Patterns and Circles repeat and here I am, an older ME but still in the middle and fascinated with where this all takes me.

Today I found a TEDx about this place I'm in, what I'm trying to do, how to do it well and be true to ME and still be kind, willing, and was...wasn't...was...wasn't.

She's spot on about all of it. Worth the 26 minutes to watch...