who i am right now.

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i recall this test we were given at work, years ago, being handed a piece of paper, 
being told to list 
who i am. 

of course, my initial reaction was to first write
a nurse
because i did not indentify with being a mother, having not borne children, 
nor a wife, because the marriage i was in was not safe for me, 
and really, that's all i knew, how to be a nurse.
i went straight from high school into college, two weeks after graduation,
and there i was, three years later, 
a registered nurse in charge on a surgical unit, 
barely 20 years of age, 
working with women who could be my mother. 

now, celebrating early retirement and diving into forced self-care, 
i am learning 
who i am. 

i view the world with different eyes. 
i listen to my body and what it tells me. 
i have found my voice and my heart
and i speak honestly and openly, 
my emotions sometimes raw and out there. 

every evening, now, i hike coyote hill to tend to the garden. 
what i used to perceive as lack of stamina
has been explained to me as part of the healing process. 
my sweet little physical therapist cheers me on as i log 
three or four miles per day, 
walking in the house, strolling pencilfox acres, 
vigorously hiking up coyote hill. 
i did not understand that having this surgery on my shoulder,
repair of the supraspinatus muscle and tendon, 
would so greatly affect my ability to walk great distances, 
or even keep myself upright at times. 

so, now, given all that, i know 
who i am. 
i am a woman who wants to be the woman she was meant to be
all those years of tending to others and their needs. 
i want to be a woman who looks for the good in all and in everything. 
i want to be a woman who tends to her own needs and interests. 
i want to be a woman who knits for herself, and reads what she finds interesting. 

i want to simply be. 

*

it's a good life. 


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