Me not We

I wake up to thunder again, but the room is still and quiet. Empty. The other side of the bed remains made, pretty pillow shams still on, still arranged, same as I left them yesterday, and the day before that and the day before that. I don't sprawl in my sleep, even though I could.

It's an unexpected kind of peaceful. I'm surprisingly not anxious, and I do not awake wishing to go back to sleep and escape it all. Instead, I think of the next project I'd like to complete in my room. I have a dream and I am awake for it. 

I've never had a singular identity. I'm not really sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a true thing. I moved from a bedroom I shared with my twin sister to a bed shared with my husband. I have never made an adult decision on my own, and I have always used the pronoun "we."

I remember discovering this truth when I was in Russia without my twin for three months in 1993. I found myself making new friends and when referring to life at home, I used the plural pronouns. I think someone actually asked me directly, "Who is 'we?' "

The first independent decision I made was to set up automatic giving to my church. I wanted to tangibly act in faith, believing God would fulfill his promise to provide for my needs now and in the future. The second was to begin redecorating my bedroom. A visible reminder every day I wake up to new life. A new beginning. 

A fresh start as me. 

Not we. 

Some changes are cliche, like the highlights I put in my hair, and the nose piercing I'm planning. Because why ever the heck not? 

But these changes are just external expressions of the emotional separation and healing that must take place. I think these changes often get mislabeled identity crises. Or maybe it's just my preconceived negative notion that an identity crisis is self-driven. I react to words like "reinventing" or "rediscovering." But this IS a crisis of identity. 

Even if I never lost myself. 

I gave of myself. Willingly. Biblically. Sacrificially sometimes. The two became one, and when they separate, it's not a clean break. It's a tearing and a ripping, and those jagged edges need binding up and tending. 

I tend to my bed, pull my side of the covers up, put my two pillows in their shams, and the bed is made. 

My life will not be so easy. But I will tend to my heart and my home and find what it means to be me. Not we.