Who am I?

Who are you?  It’s simple enough really, this question the facilitator posed at the team building workshop today at work.  Each person took a turn answering the question and as I was last in line to go I listened to the other’s talk about their roles as wives, parents, what they did for work as I searched my mind for what I was going to say. 

When the facilitator arrived at me all I could say was “I don’t know who I am.”  Because to define myself as a job, a family relation (daughter, sister, etc.) just doesn’t fit anymore.  I’m just Wendy.  I’m this tangled ball of insecurity, hope, wonder, magic, hurt, fire and tenderness.  I just am.  And I’m not okay with boxing myself inside the lines of roles, to limit who and what I can be.  Yes, I’m the Sr. Bereavement and Palliative Care Coordinator and I love my work, it nourishes my heart and my soul – but more importantly than that – I’m WENDY.  And I am fully, wonderfully complete just being me, job or not.

I made this collage of pictures of before and after weight loss and I would be furthest from what would be considered a conventional success story.  At my highest I was 285 lbs, at my lowest 197.9 and then life, cancer, the breakdown of a significant relationship (not necessarily in that order) occurred and I ballooned up to 230 lbs.  I lost my uterus to the Wendy vs. Cancer War of 2013 and in the course of a month when I was recuperating I barely ate and I walked away my pain.  

Together with my trusty canine, Moses I roamed every inch of my parent’s property.  I mourned, I hurt, I crumbled and I fell into a bubble of pain I didn’t think I’d ever come out of, and all I could do was put one foot in front of the other.  And I thought.  And I let my Momma take care of me.  And finally the tears came and only the trees in the forest bore witness….and Moses.  He never left me.  He became my constant.  My best friend.  Holder of my secrets.  My savior.  And he didn’t care if I was 500 lbs or 140 lbs.  He just loved me, Wendy.

And as I made this collage I did it to say that yes, I lost weight but what I gained was a life.  That was me wearing a hideous pink dress playing paintball – fuck yes that’s right, paintball!!  That was me not hiding behind my coworkers and sitting on the arm of the couch.  That was me sitting with Chris Witten & Erin Day-Nunn wearing a dress that exposed all of my arm and I felt beautiful in my imperfection.

So who am I?  I’m Wendy.  And that girl, I like her a whole lot.