The other night I fielded a few phone calls from the tub. I got in to relax after a long day’s journey into the usual – a long to do list and a lot of jigs and jags in different directions – one call was interesting because it was from someone I know well who was telling me a situation that involved a young boy and how the boy was fearful and this person told me that it reminded him of himself and his own fears and the fears of his brothers and father and how he didn’t know where this came from. So strange to hear this as I have always considered this person without fear until there was distance between us and I realized that fear was what characterized a lot of who he is.
I told E the other afternoon that while I am tickled pink to be in the LaLa – such a unique place in such a unique location – that actually I still harbor some uneasiness about owning or claiming to own such a place. Not that I don’t deserve it – it’s not that kind of feeling – but oft times a feeling that it is a little overdressed. She said that a friend of hers who lives on her block had been totally flooded out and had used the insurance and the opportunity to completely remake her house. This neighbor had just moved in around the same time I did and was feeling something similar. She fancies herself a bohemian (much in the same way I think of myself) and she said to E that the house was ‘too good for her.”
E said she believed we all harbor an image of ourselves that is a little discordant with the true picture of ourselves as adults. That she too thinks of herself as a hippy but in fact she got married, bought a house, had a child and sometimes that doesn’t kind of directly overlap with this picture of herself as still a hippy.
I was telling this to B when he stopped by earlier – telling him I was trying to figure out who I was – this person with a great house and this person who drives a big bad ass truck and this person who … and he said you know who you are? I said no, who? He said I tell this to my wife all the time – you’re authentic – that’s who you are.
Again we return to the “be 4 real.”