Identity

Where did parts of your identity come from? Your partner, your children, your parents, work, school, friends, church? I have been doing a lot of soul searching and spending a great deal of time on the question of "my" identity.

Identity; individuality, uniqueness, self, personality.

essential self; the set of characteristics that somebody recognizes as belonging to herself/himself and constituting her/his individual personality for life.

It seems my identity has always been focused around my gay "lifestyle". Should I come-out? Will I be accepted if I come-out? This plus many issues that stem from my family have come to make up some of my characteristics and form my identity. When I met my partner, I will confess that my identity became all wrapped up in her. As our relationship grows so do our separate identities. To this day I am more my essential self with her than anyone else.

When I started working with kids I started to realize the strongest part of my identity came from children. I have worked and learned about children over the past 20 years of my life. But in the "professional" world of teaching my identity seems to be wrapped up in the degree. Without my degree, my identity to love and teach children has been challenged with my peers.

My older, been-around-the-block identity is looking for some fresh life. I still want part of my identity to come from children. I would love for my identity to come from total strangers that are searching for their identity as well. Those that are seeking a better life, a new life and new journey. Those strangers that need someone to worry less about their own identity and more about helping them find hope.

Where will parts of a new identity come from next? I have no idea. I do know that I have a strong support system, a strong family and a strong desire to have an identity.