There is this inner knowing that we are not what is depicted by our outer shells or stitched on labels. We pick and peck at our uncomfortable skin covered coating. We rub the unsightly spots, scratch where it itches, bite off the dry flaky bits. It feels awkward to wear flesh that just doesn’t fit.

I need to strip down. I take off the mom, the wife, the background and the foreground. I pull off the gooey stories that stick to me like old chewing gum stuck under a cafeteria table. Tear out my petrified opinions. I peel off people who pull me under.

I want to know who I am. But all I can ever learn is what I am not.

I open my closets and throw all my belongings into a pile on the bed. I empty my dresser drawers into a heap on the floor. No, not this. Not that. Not these, nor those. I can only know nots. The search for self is an emptying process. I flush out hurt feelings and hard facts. Nope, not that either. And then suddenly, but not very, I begin to uncover the real me. The emptier I am the fuller I feel. The less I am the more I’m me.

And yet there persists this notion of being different, unlike anyone else. We all secretly know we cannot fit into the same box, hide behind the same excuse, not even walk under the same umbrella. Like snowflakes, before they melt, every body is a one of a kind.

Still inside I know that my unique shell is not me. So I continue to scrape and scrub hard to get rid off all the barnacles which have latched themselves onto my body and being. And then suddenly, but not very, I sense the me underneath. I am that which cannot be known. 

In my search for self, I discovered the invisible, indivisible, eternal, infinite whole. That is me. And that is you too. We are one.