Numbers

 

 

 

I am not embodied in a weight digit – 100, 10, or 1 less pound than yesterday.  I am not the number of pushups I can do – barely one, a full ten, or too many to count.

 

I am not the number between today and my last emotional crisis – a year, a week, or a few hours.

 I am not my BMI – underweight, heavy once again, or that perfect balance I want.

I am not my fears, either insects, embarrassment or abandonment. I am not a trend … the clothing, the Polaroid photos, or the things I have chosen to submit to.

I am not a blog statistic – 1, 10, or a million people. I am not my facebook likes, no matter who cares about my photos.

I am not the color of my skin – different, odd to you, or just like your own.  I am not my number of friends – a circle, a city, or a silent room.

I am not their treatment of me, when they choose flattery, ignorance, or total spite. I am not the opinion of my Love – when it was full and strong, or now stale and faded with time.

I am not my bra  size, even when it shrinks with my fading weight.

 I  am not my parents’ words when they are loving, cold, or not at all. I am not the number of Bible Verses I know by heart – a thousand or only my favorite.

I cannot be painted on a wall, be summed up in grade percentages, packed in a box or embodied in your washed-out memory of me. I am not some box of secrets or just another pastor’s daughter in Africa. I cannot be described by my shape, my sense of style, flexibility, or my inability to keep a boyfriend.

 I am not forgotten. I am not summed up in the amount of love I receive or the number of people that I know how to please. I am not the OCD I can barely fight. I am not the sound of gray, restless insomnia or the burn of my lasting headaches.

I am not my problems. I am not even the people that I love – the vivacious, the chipped, or the outcasts.

I am not the bullies that stalk me in my nightmares; monsters, old friends … or the numbers.

Building Me

(Part II of Numbers.)

I think it’s possible we’re all just made up of words. But if we must never be someone else’s.

I am my heartbeat.

I am my Favorites Playlist on iTunes. I am made of the books I spent dark hours soaking in as a child. I am every line I can quote from my favorite movie. I am a worn, white Bible with my name in capital letters markered on the side.

I am every mark on my pointe shoes. I am a million broken hair ties. I am a collection of technique flaws strung together beneath a chin lifted high with the inherent pride of ballet.

I am the morning fog on a gray beach. I am a little girl with the scent of coffee and her grandfather staining her red hair. I am the scent of baked apples and old sweaters. I am my mother’s heart.

I am butterfly kisses with the sound of laughter and the thick patter of rain on the window. I am the sound of a baby boy in Africa learning how to say ‘Kailey’.  I am the constellations on my freckled shoulders.

I am a complete fool – a child in a bigger body. I am the heart that bleeds into the stunning silence of midnight. I am the things I whisper to God beneath the covers. I am all the hellos that never happened.

I am my every flawed painting. I am the smell of Kentucky in the autumn when the kitchen is busy and the apple trees are heavy with their sweet, red knots.

You will find me in the jacaranda flowers that fall on the sandy streets that network Namibia. Hear me in the echo of a lonely house with toys, but no children. I am the noise my friends and I used to make when we hooped and hollered in the abandoned streets of an African town late at night.

I find who I am in the swift breeze of a creaking swing. I am my old, beat up bike without the training wheels. I am knees scars and calloused feet.  I am the pile of photographs scattered on the glass table next to the sofa. I might be a door shut, but I’m not often locked.

Maybe I’m the people I find it’s hardest to forgive. Or the things I can’t say out loud. Or maybe the names of my parents and their parents.

I am the cuts healed. I am the steam that clears fatigue over a hot mug of tea.  Part of me was left in that first kiss. I am a little girl with a tendency toward both drama and a little self-pity.

I am that idiot with an overwhelming amount of work left who still stays up late just to laugh or just to write.

 I am the almost-woman writing herself  into  a book.

 

I am complete in Christ Jesus. I am full, even when I am weak.