Who am I? A puzzle….

The decision to start a blog was not a difficult one. I have been writing to my kids (even when they were merely an idea in my head), to my husband (yes admittedly less often nowadays), to my friends (in difficult times especially), and of course, to myself (to put my thoughts in order, to diffuse my anger, to express my sadness)…well of course, I write for a living (I have to explain all the numbers and symbols to “normal” people).

So with a glass of wine (or coffee? Always one of the two in my hands..) I said to my Prince (not the late singer… may he rest in peace)… to my partner-in-life and the father of my boys… “I think I want to start a blog”… “nice, why not? it’s the new in thing…everybody does it” (now is that good or bad? I thought)…

Anyway, so the decision was not difficult…do I have something to lose? Not really… And if I don’t like it? Also fine, I just stop it…And if I want to write more or less often? Also, fine, there is no commitment, I thought… By the way, the moment any task becomes “I must”, subconsciously my mind discards it as undesirable and hence we don’t do it…

What was the difficult part then? The part where I had to introduce myself. To find a title for my blog. The question “who am I?”. We tend to ask very often “what is your name?” when we meet new people, as if that will explain who the person is (let alone that we have not even chosen our own names). Or “what do you do?” as if our job defines as. Well, looking to find how best to introduce myself, I realized (once more) that we define ourselves in our roles we play to other people’s lives. Yes, I am a mother, to my boys; and a wife, to my husband; and an educator, to my students; and a researcher, to my readers and fellow researchers; and many other things to other people. Moreover, I am a thinking and feeling person; I am a puzzle of all these pieces but also much more. I am as well the glue that keeps these pieces together. But I am also the person that puts the work to build the complicated puzzle; I am the effort and the skills to build it.

And in a puzzle, these are all important factors for the ultimate purpose: To be kept together. Oftentimes, the ground “trembles”, or something exogenous happens, or we bump it ourselves by accident, and the puzzle is not a whole picture anymore; but many pieces waiting to get together again. There comes a time in our lives that the “puzzle” has a piece missing or only part of it is in pieces… It does not mean we have lost ourselves. It just means that we need some time to put the effort and collect ourselves to make the picture whole again. Work in progress… always. I think that is what I am. A puzzle in progress…

And this blog? What am I doing here? In times of happiness, of curiosity, of sadness, of confusion, of depression, of aggression, of success, of failure, of positivity bursts, of extremely love, of inspiration…in times when one piece unstuck, or a big part got destroyed, or the whole puzzle needs to be rebuilt… I am going to share my thoughts, my ideas, my feelings, or even the knowledge that will make me move forward… and I am excited to start the journey, or maybe just to make sure the puzzle gets better and stronger!!!