What Do You Do?

I had a conversation this morning with a new friend. We talked about many things, among them, the idea of how defined we are by what we do, rather than by who we are. As a person who has struggled the last few years to redefine myself after my "what I do" went away, I, of course, could easily relate to this. What was particularly nice about discussing it with someone new was that she came to the conversation knowing me as just a person she'd met--not really a person who'd worked in soaps, then been out of work, then found other work. I was just a person with the plate full of life ingredients that I have now. Yes, facing work and out of work challenges is one of those ingredients. But also on that plate are being a mom, exercising the muscles to write a daily blog, and caring about the small community that connected the two of us in the first place. For the first time in a long time, I found myself able to react as a person, not as a working person or as an out of work person. Just a person. And I was grateful.
 
Maybe it was a function of how we met. Perhaps it was our coming at life from oddly similar, yet 20 years apart places. Or maybe it was just that, over time, I am getting a little better at stripping off the layers of "do" to let myself just "be."
 
It's hard to say, and I'm sure an hour of "be" won't completely change how I think about myself, but it did give me the idea that it is possible to think differently, that it is possible to think about ourselves as more than just what we do.
 
Today, I got to know a new friend a little better, and I got to know myself a little better too. And I am grateful.