Inspired by my last post on the danger of having a single story, I considered my own life with the different stories that contributed to forging my personality. Each new start began with a physical move and crossing each threshold came with significant apprehension: what would I face as I stepped, like the trusting Fool in the Tarot, into the vacuum? All I knew was that after taking that one step, there could be no return.

Every two or so decades, a move brought growth and a deeper understanding of where I’d been and what, or whom, I may have channeled to meet. Why was I in that new location having to brush up my skills in a different language? What would I have to learn in the new, alien place? When would I meet my teachers?

Let’s see… I left Livingston as a toddler and was moulded in Guatemala City for the European world my parents anticipated for me. So I left the Americas as a dark-skinned girl and arrived in Europe where my exotic edge gave me distinction. I learned to appreciate my physical attributes and what they did for me.

Some fifteen years later I left Europe for California where I saw myself as belonging to a negative stereotype of my own creation. I did not know what being Black in the States was about. Years of unsettling confusion followed. Years of searching for a me I could not find. Until one night I implored the Universe to give me direction, and the awoke in the morning with the answer: “Move to New York.”

In upstate New York, I took courses that would teach me to face my racial history. I had to come face-to-face and tackle my conflicted self-perception. As much as life had taught me to that point, I had to develop the sensitivity to what would have defined me, had I remained within my original cultural and racial framework. In New York I found definition and became a teacher. I grew healthy roots in America’s racialized society.

The next installment moved me again; from New York, to Guatemala, to Arizona where, in a comforting environment and surrounded by a few nurturing friends, I am now. Again, acquiring new skills.

I have three distinct stories. Each one has a well-defined beginning, an established period in the middle, and a clear end. Each was invariably predicated by a physical move that heralded a new start. Those who knew me in all my stages have already left this earth. Those who know me now and have read Split at the Root, step back surprised at how well I have shed my various layers and how well, nevertheless, I am still defined by my past.

What about you… What can you say are YOU? Have you given some thought to the structure of your life? Can you define the stories that tell who you are? How do you see your areas of growth? If you have a few, what was reassuring, and what was unsettling for you in the experience? Do you care to share?