I and Me

I and Me


This morning I woke up and felt like I’d been watching myself sleeping.  I couldn’t quite grasp the exact feeling, but I felt like a stranger in my own bed.  See, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and I found myself spending a lot of time escaping each moment, living in distant memories. I remembered childhood games of hide and seek and red rover, jumping double dutch, and walking endless miles for no apparent reason.  It was just the thing to do, I guess.  For some reason, I found myself feeling like I traveled to another dimension in space.  Those memories seemed to belong to someone else, they weren’t quite mine.  The girl in my memory had a very small shadow which seemed to hide frequently.  The girl in my memory didn’t speak very much.  The girl in my memory was not quite a part of anything significant, but she was always involved in something.  That’s the feeling I had this morning, like I was looking at myself with the eyes of a parallel me.  We still have very similar traits.  We share similar interests.  We don’t quite see eye to eye on a few issues, however.  For instance, I have an attraction to one type of man, she doesn’t particularly care, as long as he loves her.  I love hanging out, listening to music, and dancing all night long.  She only dances for artistic expression.  I like to get things done, complete writing projects, meet deadlines.  See, we both love writing.  She tends to dream a lot about what to write, but rarely writes anything down.  I am willing to share my work with the world, she’s afraid people will see inside her. 

So this morning, when I woke up, I had the strangest feeling.  I was left to wonder, which one of us is really me.  Then it hit me, I am.  I am left to feel stuck outside because the choices that were made, are not mine.  She made these choices, she got me here.  Now, I’m faced with losing her sweetness, which frequently lends to complacency, to my need to drive forward and make my presence known.  I like the taller shadow.  Deep inside, I think she would like to have the taller shadow too, maybe she can be my silhouette once I take the lead.  She can cool from the heat of the sun, as she walks beside, behind me, before me; and at high noon, hide inside me.  She’s a great person, everybody loves her.  The problem is, she’s somewhat of a pushover.  I’m not.  I’m not saying I’m a mean person or anything like that.  I just take the time to learn people.  I enjoy meeting new people and being a great friend and confidant as much as she does.  I just tend to be more aware of the sincerity, or lack thereof, of others.  In a nutshell, I’m not as gullible.  Yeah, I’m going to have to make some changes.  We have a balance that must be maintained.  We love good food, but she hates to cook.  Actually, she doesn’t like doing much of anything, but dreaming.  She has lovely fantasies, I enjoy them a lot.  Some of those fantasies, I work at making a reality.  Quite a few of them worked out great.  Just when I make something fun happen, she comes up with more.  How can one person dream up so much?  It’s incredible.  She creates all the love poems and romance in our life.  I talk about all the issues and concerns of being who we are in today’s society.  She can work with eroticism, I can’t even begin to think of anything erotic.  We definitely need each other, but she’s been dreaming a lot lately.  I think I must have slept a few years away. 

As I woke up today, I realized I’d been watching the movie of my life, based on decisions of another me.  With that realization, I knew I had my work cut out for me.  We are good friends, we do these things sometimes.  When one is tired and overwhelmed, the other takes the lead.  Well, it’s my turn now, she seems to have drifted into a long slumber.  I guess I sound bipolar.  Not so.  This is my balance in being a woman in today’s society.  This is my growth in to understanding my talent as a writer.  This is our freedom to be free from the closed eyes of restriction.  This is an exercise in self assessment.  This is my world announcement that I am free to acknowledge my inner and outer self.

Today, I felt the energy of renewal and change.  I felt a thousand wild horses running through my soul to bliss.  I felt like a whole new world has emerged.  I have the strangest occurrences going on in my life right now, but in spite of them all, I feel like a brand new penny.  She continued to sleep throughout my awareness, my moment of clarity.  Maybe that was the odd feeling I felt.  So, I came up with a solution, I lay back down inside her, and awakened us both, simultaneously.  I and I are going to be just fine, together.  It seems that I’ve spent my entire life, escaping one reality or another, wishing to be sweeter at one moment, then working at being more stern other times.  Yeah, we have to exist in that balance.  That’s the key to our success.  We can have the sweet with the stern.  We can enjoy laughter and dancing all night while we work diligently.  We can dream of luxury cars and beautiful homes, and make it all happen.  We can do it all, we can have it all, we can be like good and evil, without the intensity. 

My awakening might sound a bit frightening, but we all have our inner thoughts, our inner personality, our creative energy.  We have to develop a way of balancing what we want to do with what we have to do, to make a living in this world.  Some people have imaginary friends. I have an alter ego.  I have characters for my stories.  I have poetry.  I have love, I have music.  I have my silhouette.  I have my taller shadow.  We live in a world where we have to make things make sense.  Otherwise, we’ll be placed in some category not truly fitting who we are.  Hence, the working me and the dreaming can now exist at the same time.  For a few years now, I claimed I had writer’s block.  I know now that my dream state ran rampant.  Good morning to me, I say.  I can shout it from the mountain tops, good morning to me.  I think I’ll write a poem about this. 

Today I saw me in a different light
I was left to falter before in the darkness of night
I awakened to see myself strangely with a fright
Mentally shaking myself with all my might

I feel like I’m traveling in another time
Is this feeling euphoric or is it sublime
This feeling inside has no rhythm no rhyme
I’m trapped stuck inside the box of a mime

Today I awakened fresh and brand new
I saw me and didn’t know what to do
Somehow fear subsided and confidence grew
I am now refreshed by drops of spiritual dew.

We made some poor decisions in the past
We entered situations we knew wouldn’t last
We’ve stood on the beach where pebbles were cast
We traveled in time with sails full mast.

Now we once again will face the world
We left behind the frightened little girl
We can run and laugh and dance and twirl
I and me are one continuous swirl.

Each morning I say welcome to me.  Welcome to allowing freedom to grow within.  It’s a good feeling to not be a stranger in my own life.  I now sometimes wonder how I lived my life that way at all.  How can anyone live in such a closed environment? I’ll tell you what, I certainly will not go back to napping like this again.  I and Me, we’re good friends.  How can we not be? How can any of us be a friend to someone without being a great friend to ourselves first? I love me, as only a best friend can love someone.