There’s a scene in The Breakfast Club, one of my favorite John Hughes movies, where, after being given the Saturday detention assignment of writing an essay on who, exactly, they thought they were to have broken the rules they had broken and caused the problems they had caused, a group of school detentionees select a spokesperson to pen a single paper for the whole lot. The Anthony Michael Hall character, Brian, agrees to be their representative and author in residence. His reply goes a little something like this. “Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong. But, we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But, what we found is that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?” And, thus we have this week’s introspective question. Who am I? WHO am I? Who AM I? Who are you? How do we figure that one out?
I learned, in these past few years, I’m not exactly who I thought I was. Me 5 years ago: I’m English and French with some Indigenous American thrown in, most likely Cherokee. Me after an Ancestry DNA profile study: I’m primarily Scottish, with ample seasonings of British & Welsh, and just a dash of attributes from Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland. I’m zero point zero percent Indigenous. I’d also heard tales of 2 Stilwell brothers sailing over from England, how they laid eyes on Lady Liberty for the first time, how they cried happy tears at the site of Ellis Island. Wrong. All my relatives hit the US shore around the Carolinas. No one came in through New York singing the theme from Hamilton. Scottish? Me? I’m not who I thought I was. And, the DNA decoding doesn’t stop there. I’m less likely to flush red after drinking wine, as most Welsh people do not have that trait. My post asparagus consumption doesn’t lead to stinky urine (yes, this is actually a study on my DNA profile) thanks to that sprinkle of genes from Sweden and Denmark. I’m designated as someone who isn’t affected by, or does not notice, bitterness in foods like cilantro or Brussels sprouts. They also correctly surmised that I don’t have a cleft chin and that my Stilwell ears have attached earlobes that don’t dangle. They predicted my hair was dark, that my ring finger is shorter than my index finger, that I don’t produce much earwax, and that I have a medium skin tone. In fact, the only category they got wrong over at Ancestry DNA is the one where they say I’m supposed to be a world class sprinter. Go ahead and laugh. I did.
There are other ways to identify who we are beyond our surnames, countries of origin, and our love/hate relationship with cilantro. There are websites devoted to figuring out whether your moon was rising or falling or waxing or waning based on the time of day you were born and what the universe was doing out there in that big old sky. There are Briggs-Meyers tests that tell us who we are and how we can get along best with those who are our polar opposites. I’m an INFJ, incidentally. We are rare, uber sensitive, known empaths, and often targeted by narcissists. There are tests that group us all into different color pools. I’m blue, known to be creative, known to shun being in positions where confrontation is common, and definitely known to struggle with the yin and yang of wanting yet hating the spotlight. Recently, a new personality study has taken the world by storm. Yes, I mean the enneagram. There are all sort of questionnaires out there to show you what your enneagram number is and how that affects all that you do. I’m an enneagram 4, with a 5 wing. Translation: I cry a whole heck of a lot. I also worry about not being unique enough. I also like hiding at home. I can’t handle small talk and I take a book to hide behind everywhere I go. In Instagram speak, “I just can’t even” most of the time. And, we mustn’t forget the oldest personality identifier of all time, astrology. I’m a Taurus, the most stubborn and self-righteous yet sensitive sign in all the land. No wonder life has been challenging for me lately. I’m a bull who’s also a hermit who’s also worried about being less than the best bull who’s prone to crying and hates managing other people but who can eat all the asparagus without having stinky urine while sprinting across the meadow… most likely in Scotland. In the words of Dallas’ own Edie Brickell, while she was still with The New Bohemians and before she married Paul Simon, “What I am is what I am. Are you what you are or what?” In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definition, what I am is happy to be here in this world with you today.
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