Since 2002, A Math Teacher was who I was, and any other applicable definition was secondary, if not imaginary. Since graduating college, the whole of my energies was focused on shaping minds, giving students tools for life, changing lives hopefully for the better. But in early December, my career was temporarily excised from my life, so that I could focus on “me” and get my Self in shape, so I could return better, stronger, faster… but I discovered that I had worked hard to ignore that Self. Who I was in Real Life had atrophied and I had to rebuild it. I had the technology. And I found the willpower. Unfortunately, I could not procure bionic parts. But I’m strengthening what I can, and I am reminding myself of all those subdefinitions:

I am:

• a full-fledged adult
• a daughter, sister, aunt, and not-too-in-law
• a wife who is learning to be a partner
• a cat-mommy of two Siamese, one of whom is “on the spectrum” (kitty version)
• a homeowner and neighbor
• a person who has to solve the puzzle
• a perfectionist who uses micro-planning and procrastination to disguise insecurity over not being perfect
• a person with very defined morals and personal rules
• a person who rarely judges others and finds them lacking
• a naive fool who, regardless of experience, is constantly surprised by others’ rule-breaking
• an American that, nevertheless, isn’t from around here (no matter where ”here” is), and never was
• a regular person (my dream since childhood) who has had the luxury of extraordinary experiences
• a psychiatric patient who took her life back and will accept the glitches that come my way as a result
• a person who lives with fibromyalgia and its ups, its downs, and its limitations
• a woman resculpting her curves to find her body once again (there was a reason I didn’t diet before my wedding: I wanted to look the way I looked 4 years later and 4 years earlier, which I did and I will again)
• a musician rediscovering her instruments and her love for music in all its forms (well, most of them)
• a collector of stories and a story-teller
• a student who will never learn enough
• a math/science geek
• a traveller
• a people-watcher
• a total klutz
• a silly, giggly, goof-ball
• a princess
• an actor in life’s play
• an altruist
• a person who lives for the sake of others when she cannot live for herself
• a person who does for others before she does for herself
• an advocate for people with disabilities
• a person that almost has never felt anger
• an educator (honestly, I randomly start teaching people about thread count in Bed, Bath, and Beyond when at loose ends like this)

I’m sure there are other things people can add to this. But these are the few things I have thought of, mostly in the order they occurred to me, as I sat here over the course of an hour. I miss teaching, and I will either return to the classroom part-time or, more likely, tutor as close to full-time as I reasonably can. But it feels good to be rediscovering who I am and who I can be when I’m not crippled by pain caused by constant overexertion.