I am Life…

Who am I?

When I divorced my first husband I set out to “find myself”. I asked the question so many women ask: Who am I besides a mother and wife?

I walked this journey of “self discovery” with my two best friends. We got drunk together, broke down in messy pieces together, we asked each other the hard questions, we went through the “wrong men” together, we parented our children together, learned music, cooked messy meals together, and laughed until we cried on a regular basis; we discovered who we are not together… we Became.

Now, we are settled and all three of us are with the “right man”. We are engaged again, and two of us are carrying babies over a decade after birthing our last children. We are apparently women who now know who we are. Yet, I find myself wondering again as I approach marriage and motherhood for the second time around: Who am I?

I am not “just” a mother. I give life! I am a woman who gets to experience God creating Life… and it happens inside of my body. How I, as a young woman, thought that wasn’t somehow “being enough” is beyond me. The gift we have as Life Givers is immeasurable, it is Being in the truest sense of the word.

I am not “just” a wife. I inspire Love! When my partner looks at me he sees his world. He would do anything to make me smile, he would die for me and my children. He is flawed, yes… and so am I. Yet, he has no desire to change me, no need for me to be other than I am. He adores me when I am at my lowest, he strives to give me the world. What an honor to be the wife of this man, what a gift to be Loved with such depth.

Who am I? This is a question I will happily answer from now on…

I am a Woman. I am Life. I am Love.

This is love:
to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast.

From:
The Divani Shamsi Tabriz, XII