Identity

I've been thinking lately about identity and the way people see us, and how we see them. This was partly inspired by reading a friend's blog who was talking about how she teaches piano students and arranges music and things like that. I realized that most people who have known me for the last few years would probably not think of me as a musician, or even musical. Yet all through high school I thought of myself as "musical" and it was an important aspect of my identity. I was in band for the first two years of high school and I also played the piano. I played for Young Women's as well as for extra things like baptisms, enrichment nights, etc. I also spent nearly a year playing piano for sacrament meeting in the Spanish-speaking ward that shared our building. For a few years I planned and coordinated an annual sacrament meeting program that the Young Women put on (it was modelled on the Primary program with musical numbers and talks). I also loved playing piano solos or accompanying people for talent shows. When I got to BYU, I discovered that most other people I knew were "musical" too, and my help was not needed as desperately in the ward. Since then I've rarely had the opportunity to play the piano (except as a missionary) and I find that I miss that part of myself. I especially love accompanying people who sing or play other instruments, so my new goal in the next year is to find us a cheap piano so I can start teaching my children and we can sing together as a family. I want my children to feel like we have a musical family.

I find it interesting that many people I know don't see this side of me at all, and I realize that there are sides to them that I don't know or see either. Our identity shifts throughout our lives as we focus on different things we need to do. I feel like I'm still growing into my role as a mother and it's sometimes strange for me to contemplate the fact that I am as important to S-Boogie as my mother is to me. I think of the love and admiration I've felt for my mom while growing up, and our complicated relationship, and it scares me that my own daughter looks to me in the same way. The other day we were having some frustration and she said "mom, you're always mad at me". And I felt really bad because I think it does seem that way sometimes. I don't want her to feel like her mother is always grumpy, but I'm also equally glad that she won't have the "my mother is a perfect self-sacrificing saint" problem either. I hope she realizes that her mother is human and is trying her best to learn a new role. When a child is born, a mother is born too, and I'm realizing that it takes a lot of struggling to grow into motherhood. Hopefully my children will learn from my example that they can always forgive themselves and others, keep going, and change for the better. I know that's what I learned from my mom and all the different things she has been and done in her life and I try to keep that long-range perspective as much as I can.