The Me I Am Trying to Be

I used to dream about being an ice-skater.  In fact, occasionally for no particular reason, I still have visions of myself twirling about in figure eight patterns, then leaping up in a perfect triple axel or triple toe loop. I think in those moments, it's as if a latent part of myself is still open to the possibilities of what might be, instead of the reality of what is.

The pragmatist says, "Are you kidding me? You live in Florida, it's not like we see a whole lot of ice down here!"

"I mean c'mon on, you are knocking on the door of 40, my friend, live in the now!"

Obviously, I think skating is a metaphor for the fact that even nearing my 40's, some part of me is still the daydream believer.

Many, many years ago, one summer day in about 1984, if my memory serves, my mother and I, after much whining and pleading on my part, entered a children's bookstore in a small strip mall in a non-descript Central Florida town. This was before the days of Books a Million, the Barnes and Noble Superstores, long before Borders was ever dreamt up to ultimately fail. The most we had was a small B. Dalton and a Waldenbooks in the mall, and I am not sure they were there at the same time.

I remember preferring B. Dalton because they had these faux wood floors that were fastened down with rivets that were the same size, color and texture of pennies. In fact as a child, I was certain they were. I used to just wander through the shop counting the 'pennies'. Because at that time, kids were not the big business they are today. There might have been a small children's section, jammed in at the end of the adult shelves. But there were no huge displays of stuffed animals from fiction, no child size chairs to sit in, no puzzles area or literature based toys. There were simply books, and as much as I grew to absolutely adore them, books were not all that attractive to me, packaged thusly, as a child.

So this children's bookstore was a dream come true. Seeing its sign up for the 'Grand Opening',  I literally could not wait to go there.  Here I sit now, nearly forty and I can even remember where it was, the shopping center. I could drive there now and point out the exact location. In fact, I'm certain that the frontage it occupied was combined with another store front and became the pub where I once spent an evening in the company of a spectacularly alcoholic Englishman.

There in the shop I browsed, looking at books that were written and illustrated just for kids. I remember feeling almost overcome at the variety, the colors, the authors, some of whose names I was familiar and some who I would come to know. It was a brand new world of sparkling vistas, which would ignite a passion within me, that would never subside, up to and until this very day. From that moment on, bookstores became magical to me. Some people find their truest selves when they first sit in front of a piano, some in front of sewing machines, others in-front of a Mac, or a drill press. I found my truest self standing that day in a bright cheerful shop filled with the smell of printed paper and glossy cardboard covers.

My mother, always raised to be frugal, has ultimately failed in her attempts to instill in me the virtues of eschewing book ownership in favor of book borrowing. I think if she were honest, or I could somehow get her to ingest copious quantities of truth serum, it would come out that she actually feels worse about that than me being unmarried at nearly forty! She is a good sport though and some years ago, bequeathed to me a bookmark that is imprinted with an original quote by Erasmus, that states, "When I get a little money, I buy books, and if I have any left I buy food and clothes!"

So it was a big leap for her, when, I pressed her to purchase for me a book of pyschological exercises (for kids mind you) entitled, "The Me I Am Trying To Be".  I think it was the 80's version of  "Free to Be You and Me" (all apologies to Marlo Thomas) and she agreed.

I dutifully read and re-read this paperbound book of riddles, morality stories, injunctions not to be a bully, and I did all the exercises, my answers scrawled in a childish hand, listing my dreams and aspirations for the future, whom I hoped to marry (he, whoever he may be, has apparently lost his way or married a supermodel instead), how to treat 'old people', not to steal, or shoplift, etc., etc. In short, completion of the book was supposed to create the 'Me I Was Meant To Be'. Somehow, occasionally, I felt that I let the book down.

And I question...am I the 'Me I Was Meant to Be'?

For years, I kept the book, returning to it as a superior adolescent, a smug teenager, a scared twenty-something, to smile at it, shake my head with rueful laughter, wonder what possessed me to write this thing or that one. In my thirties, I lost track of it. In one of my clear-outs, I probably decided to part with it for once and for all, rationalizing that I WAS 'the Me I Was Meant To Be'!

In this last appraisal though, I think that I probably found the me I was meant to be standing in the midst of all those shelves in that children's bookstore before I ever did one exercise in that book, the true self who loves nothing more than the printed word, to read it, to write it, to savor it.

Like anything good and meaningful, I think the act of becoming is something you have to work out everyday for yourself, your salvation, marriage, relationships, your occupation.

So for today, be the me you were meant to be, but never stop trying to be the me you are trying to be...