I'm working something out. It is beginning to seem to me in middle age that I am, as a human being, more than the sum of all my choices and lessons learned,  more than the compilation of my life experiences: the kind of parent I was, the kind of daughter or wife or friend I was; more than a tally of the occasions on which I stood strong and those on which I buckled, and more even than the extent to which I have loved and been loved. In fact when I reach backwards to draw all those defining moments and traits into the present for itemizing, they are not as accessible as they ought to be.  It is not so easy to line them up as evidence of who I am.  They are fuzzy. They have lost some of their salience. Of course I remember what it was like to be the mother of a young child. Of course I remember the agony of divorce,  the tenderness of romance, the moral failings, the personal accomplishments ....but the memories will not cooperate with my efforts to stack them, sort them, and fashion them into some sort of picture of what my life has been about.
As in chemistry when elements are combined to create a new compound, the individual components of my life story are not so readily identifiable anymore. My identity cannot be broken down into its original constituents. I am becoming something new...more than just the sum of the elements that combined to create me. Something is taking place, a chemical reaction, a genesis. I am still in progress . There can be no definitive computations of my life's value or meaning because the clock has not stopped. I am not my obituary. I am more than who anyone thinks I am. I more than even I can understand. I could lose whole chapters of my life and still be intact.  I am not like the protagonist in a time travel film who must be careful not to change anything in the past lest the future  unravel. I've had a glimpse of a me  who can't be unravelled, who can't be undone because I can't be held still long enough for the first thread to be pulled. Any one  in any part of my half century of living could withdraw their affection or reconsider their opinion of me and there would be no ripple effect. I am too far along. I am solid. I am ethereal. I am fixed. I am transitioning. I don't understand it but I am approaching a me who can't be destabilized, disrupted or dismantled...and it's going to be good.

Comments

  1. Unknown22 April 2017 at 09:42

    Allyson, What a poignant and clairvoyant story of your chrysalis. I am reminded of Nabokov's writing:"the snap of the cocoon's opening forces his eyes open, and he observes the moth's emergence. At that moment, the patterns of the story--those leading directly to the miracle as well as those seemingly leading away from it--merge in the carefully written description of the moth." It's wings continue to grow, until they reach "the limit set for them by God." Hence, as your narrative insightfully and acceptingly describes, your limit has yet to have been reached, and what came before and will come afterwards do not devalue your current self. You stand alone, worthy, entirely at ease with the version of yourself that is you.

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