Cognitive Dissonance

Every morning, I wake up wondering which me I will wear today.  I grumble from my comfy bed, stumble toward the porcelain throne, and crumble at the blurry image in the mirror.  What day is it today?

            I don’t know if it’s sad or brilliant.  I choose my personality like the clothes I wear: will it fit this situation, the people I will see today?  Who am I when I don’t know what to expect?

            Short answer: I don’t know.

            Am I the teacher?  Pulled together, responsible, gads of wisdom to impart, Ms. Frizzle come alive?  Do I jump easily between my college students and my high school students, always on time, well put-together, prepared, prim and proper in appearance and delivery?

            Am I the rocker chick?  Black eye make-up caked on, sweating it out in the pit as I lose myself in the ecstasy of the crowd and the sound?  Hoping I don’t run into students or parents as I let my freak flag fly?

            Am I the writer?  Constantly weighing the words as they writhe and rise and wither?  Seeking the secrets of the universe in the spaces between the lines?  Jealously guarding the nuggets of truth that invade my brain when least expected?

            Am I the wife and mother?  Putting all else aside to please my husband and become Suzy Homemaker?  So engrossed in my children’s lives that I have no life of my own anymore?  So falsely proud at each aggrandized accomplishment?

            Am I the Scorpio?  Passionate, fiery, sexual in all its incarnations?  Bringing others to their knees to worship at my feet with one glance in their direction?

            Am I the head case?  Always living inside the fantasy I create where everyone is amazing and perfect and happy (and skinny, of course)?  Depressed and afraid to admit it?  Overwhelmed?  Over stressed?  Hiding in plain sight?

            Am I the mystery?  Hiding parts of myself from all but a select few, all the while bursting to shout it from the mountaintops?  Aching to find camaraderie in my depravity and commiseration in my loneliness?

            It is untenable and irreconcilable.  I want someone to know me, completely, entirely, in all my incarnations, and yet, I myself do not know that girl.  I crave love, acceptance, and affection, yet I wall off my soul, creating pernicious passwords and meticulous mazes to deter any would-be heroes set to invade my psyche.  Get past all that, I think, and I’ll tell you who I really am. 

            Only, I can’t.

            Because I don’t know.

            I am not today who I was yesterday or who I will be tomorrow.

            I am not who I want to be.

            I put a positive spin to it on my resume: chameleon-like social skills, wearing so many hats that I become a haberdasher’s dream.  I play-act that I belong, that I fit in.  I’m good at it.  But I have to be....

            I live in a constant state of anxiety over the image of myself I present to others.  It leaves me feeling hollow, isolated, shattered.  Which shard I pick up today often becomes the focus of my writings, tripping and tangling through my brain like a drunken sailor’s first footfalls on land.  Writing becomes my happy place, my refuge—but also my torture.  I find that I am most authentically myself when I write, particularly when I write for myself alone.  And yet, that compulsion to share, that drive to find a like soul to share my darkness and my uncertainties pushes me to publish.

            And still, even in that, I hide.  I have a nom de plume or two that I use for different things.  When my Scorpio nature takes over and the explicit and graphic colors my words, I write for a fan fiction board under one name, and when I feel the need for confession, I post to a blog under another.  Notes to those closest to me, whether deep and meaningful or light and airy, I usually sign with a simple letter A; however, anything academic or researched or reasoned falls under my full, professional name, including the initials of my highest degree. 

            And yet... and yet....

            Isn’t this everyone?  Don’t we all morph and merge and metastasize based on the factors around us?  We have this core being, this inner self that we embrace in our darkest moments with the bad guys closing in, but then we have different personas we put on like armor to face the hordes of enemies—or sometimes, even friends—as we meander the world at large.  We don’t cuss in front of our mothers, we hide our tattoos under clothes at work, we carefully edit the details on our resumes, and we cry alone in the privacy of dark corners or rail against injustices into impassive pillowcases. 

We all hide our true selves, often even from our selves.  Instead, we succumb to the influences and expectations of others, or what we perceive them to be.  We tailor ourselves to the situation in word and deed.  So, if that becomes our default position, what incarnation of ourselves is the “real” us?

Perhaps, and stick with me here, we are all of those things.  Perhaps, just as a cake is eggs and flour and sugar and vanilla and butter, I am the sum total of my conglomerate parts.  I am a teacher-rocker-writer-wife-mother-Scorpio-head case-mystery.  Perhaps, rather than seeing this as a dissociative disorder—a failing of my psyche to accurately file me away under a specific and non-threatening label—I should consider this a menu, a smorgasbord, really.  A never-ending wardrobe filled from here to Narnia and back with choices limitless and lovely. Each day offers an opportunity to try on something new, to adjust as necessary.  An extra seam here, a different button there, some bric-a-brac along that edge....

It is up to me.  I can be who I need or want to be.  I can wear the version that looks best that day, and I can make alterations at the drop of a hat.  And speaking of hats, wouldn’t a nice little chapeau go so well with who I am today?