So who are you really?

"I'm not sure who I am," I said cautiously.

"Many people never are," she said, quite earnestly now…"But it doesn't matter, you know. If for one moment of your whole life you know that you are, then that's your life, that moment, that's unnua, that's all."

-- Ursula Le Guin, Changing Planes

I just finished that book, Changing Planes, and I loved every word, every syllable, every punctuation mark. Her language, the GLORY of it -- I got lost in the pages (good books are like will o'wisps, you follow their lights into the marshes and if you aren't careful you might not find your way back) and couldn't put it down; I read the entire book from start to finish in a single sitting, entranced, deaf and blind to the rest of the world, as if it had faded away, as if it had ceased to exist.

I love books. (Is there anything better, honestly, than a good story? I'm not entirely positive that even sex comes close.) If I could I would move to Borders, set up shop in Barnes & Noble...most of my care packages have included things to read, as most of my friends know me well enough to know that without a book, I'd shrivel up...like a mummy or a bog person, except without the bandages or the smell of peat. (Interesting side note: did you know that mummies were used as firewood in Egypt there for awhile? That's why there aren't as many dessicated dead people as you might expect, given the Egyptian prediliction for the spooky stuff) So the immediate sense of well-being I get from just being in a bookstore...Chaz used to bundle me up and drive me to Borders when I was in a pissy mood senior year, which was often...that's part of who I am, as much me as my tendency towards neurosis, my temper, and my hair. I am a redhead who loves books. I know at least that much. I don't understand people who whine about trying to find themselves, or not knowing who they are. How can you not know who you are? You live inside your skin every day, see the world through your own eyes and live an interior life that is uniquely yours. If you don't know yourself, how could anyone else ever know you, either? Introspection, people...look into it.

I know exactly who I am, and that's not going to change. Despite my flaws (everyone has flaws, except maybe The Pope, and he might have been a real booger as a kid) I like this person that I've always been. Finally, after all this time…I accept my temper, I accept my flair for the dramatic, I accept that I have verbal diarrhea and tend to fly off the handle without giving it due thought…I accept that I'm serious and sometimes awkward, that I take things personally and that I tend to demand a lot from the people I care about. As someone told me recently, I'm a "freakin' handful!" but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Is it bad to have high expectations for our loved ones? Is it bad to be bluntly honest and call bullshit when bullshit needs to be called?

People talk about growing into their skins, growing up, growing out…they talk about "maturing" like who you are as an adult is some completely new life-form from who you were at 5, 10, 15 or 20. I disagree. Do you think you would recognize yourself if you went back to sophomore year of high school? Fifth grade? Kindergarten? Or do you think you would see seeds of your future self in the person you used to be? I think "who we are" is an amalgam of traits that we're born with, and we don't change. We age and we become more comfortable with ourselves, but we don't change. Maybe your behavior changes, maybe your way of interacting with the world, but not the essential bits and pieces that make up you.

Know thyself. Really, what would be the point otherwise?