Who Am I?

Tear stained cheeks were the first thing she noticed as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She stood searching for quite some time, the image that she recognized, yet didn't. She examined the face, the tears, the soul of the individual who gazed back at her.

She searched the eyes of that individual for clues. Clues that would help her understand. Clues that would identify who she was. But nothing. Sure, she recognized the shell, the body although it was quite disfigured. She knew she was a daughter, a sister, a mother, a friend, a lover, a woman.....but she she didn't yet know herself.

So she asked the woman in the mirror, "Who are you?" No reply came. The hurt that was deep within escaped through more tears, confusion. anger and even hopelessness as she realized that all the convictions that defined her up to that point, were evading her now. She didn't know who the person looking back at her was because that person was living through and coping with things, she never imagined or knew how to break free from. Her face manifested the pain deep within as she wept ...her face distorted from the grief.

She seen the bruises, the swelling, the black eyes, the cuts, the evidence that the body had taken blows that it shouldn't. But that didn't affect her nearly as much as the thought of being lost forever. The thought of dying seemed comforting as it would end the search for answers and would bring freedom.

In her numbness, confusion, pain and suffering....she turned from the reflection in the mirror and pressed on into life, not knowing how things would go...but knowing that they must. That life carries on. It was then that she started to understand that the outside does not dictate who she is on the inside, in the heart and soul of our being. Rather we dictate who we are and she was ready to learn who she could be.

And her journey began.....