Who Am I?

"I've been thinking and I don't - I don't think I know who I am." 

I feel the colour blossoming over my cheeks, the weight of it pulling my eyes to the table. A rare moment of embarrassment in front of the person I am never embarrassed in front of. 

"I know. You haven't figured it out yet, have you?" The kindness in his voice makes me look up, glad he hasn't laughed at me. 

"You will though. You just need to find what you love."

~

I don't know who I am. 

That's such a strange thing to say. To write. 

To feel. 

~

I don't think I ever really gave myself a chance to figure it out.

I went from one mess to another, and then an almost-but-not-quite that laid a sleepiness over the 3 years that were really there for that kind of question.

And then the happiest of all inevitable accidents found me with Tom, and somewhere in the back of my head it felt like the time to be just me - the time to be alone to ask that question - had slipped through my fingertips.

It wasn't the only question that was pushed away - there were many others that came bubbling to the surface only to disappear all over again - but this is the one my thoughts keep snagging on.

~

"I think I spent a long time hiding," I say, thoughtful. 

"Hiding? From what?" 

"The leftovers."

~

I've been thinking about it and I think I had built myself a wall. A wall of reassurances, standing safely in my comfort zone.

2015 saw the last bricks of that wall crumble, and eventually there was nothing left.

Nothing but a plane ticket and passport.

~

What is it that makes someone who they are?

Of all the books I have read this month, not one has used quite the same words to describe the people within them.

Appearance, personality, habits.

"He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee." *

All of this muddled with my degree^ and still, I can't produce an answer to that question.

I do not have a reply.

~

They say travel is a way of discovering yourself. A chance to find out who you are.

It would be wrong to say the last 5 months have thrown me completely off balance.

Better to say they have shown me I was never balanced in the first place.

I didn't know I would come out here to discover the need to discover myself. I didn't know that question was hiding.

I didn't know I was brave enough to look.