Finding Who I Am After Jan
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 21 seconds
Like all of my widow friends, I am trying to determine who I am in this new world.
With my soulmate Jan, I knew who I was, and as we grew older, we grew closer.
Now on my own, I made a classic mistake in the first few months.
As David Brooks of the NY Times wrote about his dynamic in “How to Find Out Who You Are,” (PDF), I looked inside myself as if I was “an onion, with layers of social selves to peel off to get closer and closer to the inner core, the true self. ”
Brooks stresses it is not looking inward but being like an artist that we find ourselves.
Brooks writes that one needs to be like an “artist who reaches back and seizes upon what he or she can find useful from the earlier artists. It is the later artist taking the initiative, grabbing, incorporating something to use in his or her own expression.”
He quotes Miles Davis,
Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
I am bringing Jan with me as I seek to define the new me.
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We are often asked to remember the most important person in our lives.
Jan has been and always will be my answer. Her love transformed my life. If we had not met and fallen in love, I would not be who I am today.
