Fearfully and Wonderfully Me

I’m 16. I'm rocking a Gravity defying Mohawk the color of a child’s interpretation of grass. My jeans are ripped. My shirt is a vintage mechanics shirt with the name of some unknown car repairman over my heart.I’m barefoot. I tentatively share a poem with an audience claiming to be my family in spirit. When I’m done nobody cheers, nobody claps, nobody nods a head. I don’t even think anybody smiled. It’s as silent as a long unvisited graveyard. Later I’m informed it wasn’t the poem that was the problem. It was my disgraceful disrespect for God displayed by my ripped jeans and bare feet. I had once thought this was supposed to be holy ground.

I’m 10. I have a smile that reaches halfway around my head. It's a big smile. I am still possessed by innocence that thinks anything is possible. I want to be an artist even though my interpretation of the color of grass is a bit off. I want to paint abstracts. Yes, I’m a ten year old who loves the stirrings of a good abstract. A well meaning but clearly non perceptive grown up tells me that if I can’t grasp the concept of realism I could never understand the theory of abstract. Innocence began to release its hold. I put away my pens and pencils and markers and paint. I guess I just figured that if I couldn’t create what had been defined as beauty, I couldn’t create the expression swelling and swirling within. I had once thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder and expression was in all of us.

I’m 32. My abs are clearly defined. I'm probably a bit too proud of them. My hair is beginning to thin, probably as a counterweight to the cobblestones residing over my intestines. Papers have been signed, a gavel has been dropped and my Marital union has been dissolved with clear and painful borders and even a DMZ, my son. She says she loves me but just needs me to be something other than who I am and what I am. She says she doesn’t understand how anyone could actually love who I am. I can’t really see it either, I’m not sure I ever did. I had once thought love was accepting the object of affection for all that they are and all they are not.

I’m 20. My hair is thick and long, my nails are painted. I wear women’s jeans size 6 and t-shirts size boys extra large with silly cartoon characters on them. I’m in Bible college, no clue why I’m there or why I stayed. My hands are grasped and pulled into uncomfortable positions twisted unnaturally and brought level with my eyes. It’s painful. My right shoulder feels like it’s on the verge of dislocation. The authority figure leans in so close I can smell what he had for breakfast on his breath. If you don’t remove this faggoty demonic paint from your fingers God will never speak to you or love you he says. He says this in front of my entire class. I invested heavily in nail polish remover that day. Not sure why. I stopped believing in God that day, at least for a time. Maybe I had an idea that those paint removing formulas would remove the confusion swirling around who I was. Maybe it was because I was desperate to hear a word of love from God. I had once thought God was always speaking and loved everyone.

I’m 38. My Mohawk is gone, my jeans are no longer ripped. My bare feet dig into the soil, glide on green grass, and dip into cool water whenever they get the chance. I am certain that Everywhere I step the ground is holy

I’m 38 My innocence has long departed but I’ve gleaned so much insight and understanding over the course of the departure. A smile has once again begun to take up residence on my face, and it’s threatening to take over more territory. I paint and create and I express the deeper inner beauty that at times I am convinced is a gift meant for only me to see.

I’m 38. My abs are covered by layers of soft, easily accumulated, ineffective protection. My hair is no longer thinning, it's mostly gone the way of a good night's sleep. You wake up in the morning and wonder where it went. I wear hats almost all the time and sometimes people don’t even know who I am when I’m not wearing one. I am seen, I am known and I am accepted for all that I am and all that I am not. loved for all that I am and all that I am not. I think now, having a partner who sees and knows, that I could never have been truly loved by another had I not begun to learn to love myself

I’m 38. I don’t wear women’s jeans size 6 anymore and I most definitely do not wear t-shirts size boys extra large. My nails are usually painted and the remover now only serves the function of making room for other colors. I hear from God when I stop to listen and when I do They tell me that They love me just for the simple fact that I exist and for who I am.

I’m 16

I’m 10

I’m 32

I’m 20

I’m 38

I’m fearfully and wonderfully me.