Simple addition?

∑ all parts should equal the whole, right?

I was discussing this with my counselor the other day. We concluded that my identity has been taken up by the labels "wife" and "mother" for so long, that who I really am has gotten lost and now that I am trying to figure out who I am, I don't know how to seperate the labels from the actuality of being.

So he gave me an assignment to spend the two weeks between appointments to figure out who Sandra is.

My niece wrote about this not too long ago. And I had already been thinking about it when I read her post.  This week I need to report on my progress of figuring out who I am without using the words wife or mom.  A hard assignment when

A) one believes that being both wife and mom is the purpose she was sent to earth

B) one has spent more of her life being one and/or the other than not

C) one lives in a world that defines a person by occupation instead of character traits

Last week I came across an article that I thought might help me as a starting point to pull together all the thoughts mulling in my head. Because really I am more than the sum of all my labels- mom, wife, daughter, sister, friend, counselor, teacher. Those labels tell you what I am,  what I do but not who I am. And figuring that out has been harder than I thought it would because the what of me is such a part of the who of me. I don't know how to separate them. Each of them is an integral part of the other and pulling them apart and inspecting them one by one takes time and emotional energy.

What I have found is that the simple addition of who I am is not really simple.  In fact I think some of the equation is always missing because what I see is not what others see at any given time.  I had my 90 day evaluation at Target the other day and I got a perfect score in all six areas. Then the supervisor told me something that she didn't tell the others during their evaluations- I do more transaction than any other cashier. And not just a few more- the numbers show a lot more. And she told me that there are guests that come in asking if I am at work because they want me to help them.  But even this is not a whole picture of who I am, just a small snapshot of a particular moment in time. But the sum of all that I am goes into making that snapshot.

So, I am still left with writing a profile of who I am, of what makes me, me without the labels. But in the disecting of the equation, I am finding that I am liking the parts and am looking forward to putting it all back together and finding the true answer to who I am when no one is looking.

---

Indeed