Who am I?

Who am I?  That sounds like the beginning of an old joke, or maybe something left over from the sixties, but it is actually kind of an interesting question.

Up until I was seven I was who my mother told me I was.  I had no reason to believe otherwise.  If she said I was that “little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead and when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid” then I was!

After that I began to suspect that some of her assessments were simply wishful thinking.

In spite of stories about ancestors who were all glorious and brilliant and brave, I suspected that I might just be a very plain little girl.

I was given music lessons and put in special classes for one thing or another and it became obvious that I might be kind of a gifted little girl, but inside I felt very plain and only wanted to fade into the wallpaper like a human chameleon. 

I wasn’t sure who I was or what I knew, but I knew there was a lot more I didn’t know and that was kind of scary.

Most of my life since then has been pretty much on the same track.  Sometimes people profess to see things in me that I don’t and I suspect they are either projecting or trying to be nice.

But wouldn’t it be nice if that weren’t true!