the me or me to be.

Who am I?

I've been asking that question a lot lately. Asking my friends, and my self, and my God, and hoping that somehow, some collection of responses will gel into a vision, a face, or a solid. So far, no goods.

I used to have this really awesome and firm self. My friend Lauren says I still have it, I just need to rediscover it. To gain balance again.

The truth is, I like being a little off-balance. Not in a "oh ha ha, he he, this is so much fun," way, but in a "Dude, if I come out the other end of this alive down here, I will be in the 'center of God's will', as they say" kinda way. And that'll be good.

I've been changed. There's no way around that. There's no reason to try to find one. Uh oh, complete word-vomit honesty in 5..4..3..2..

These people have made me doubt the core of everything I am, in six months or less. Every strange thing has come to seem a little less strange (sometimes a lot less). Their love is cause for soul-crushing humility, in the inadequacy of my own ability to love across differences. Though my skepticism lives, it does in a tempered form, made softer by unimaginable grace, and openness.

I'm not me anymore. Or just not the 'me' who drove into town back in August.

I feel like one of those actresses with a one-in-five chance for the statue, histrionic, and babbling, "This is just SO unexpected." Seriously, what did I think would happen?

Not this. That's for sure. I can't explain this. There's no shortage of public and private documentation of my time here, and still...I don't understand it. I read back, and I ask myself, "Why did you go back?" Why did I decide to go that first Wednesday? And the second? And the third? When did I start taking these ideas seriously? What was happening when I was baptized? What is going on in my life?!?

I chose. And then I didn't. My writings, and my recollections, suggest that I never stopped doubting. I didn't suddenly lose my skepticism, and though I willingly gave up objectivity, I gave it up in service to honest intellectualism. All of this--it would not have been my choice. I feel the tension between the direction I would have taken, and the direction I have taken, near constantly with my friends. And yet, I wasn't brainwashed. I don't feel ill-prepared to face questioning friends, and I haven't lost touch with the big, bad world. I am wholly me, and also wholly something else.

What does that mean? Anyone?