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Me, Myself and I
By Stephanie Kemp








Prompt: If you could take one word and fasten it to your heart and use it in love and war and everything in-between…what would it be? And why?

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“Me.”

Now, I hope you won’t go thinking that I am a navel gazer (or only a navel gazer).

I am just trying to be honest (another good word!) and can’t currently locate my lifelong go-to favorite word: curious. (Don’t worry, curiosity and I have been down this road before. I know she’ll circle back.)

There are a lot of words that auditioned for this role, but they didn’t really stand a chance.

Against………..Me.

I wish they would have. (But only the positive ones - optimism came in a close second and took control of call backs, keeping out words currently taking up a lot of space, like those two that start with F…………..)

At this moment in my very lucky life, in this very unsettled and unsettling world (or just because of this writing prompt), I know that everything does (and must) start with Me.

And I talk to enough people about completely ridiculous and/or very serious things to know that I am not the only one thinking this thought.  It’s a scary and pivotal moment in time for the Me in everyone.

I am trying to be nicer to Me.  

…Trying to take a closer look at Me from more than just the mirror (or my shiny social media posts).

…Trying to find and hold and offer a little grace,

…to all the people that are Me.

I could go on and on and on (or end it here), but for the purpose of this prompt (which I am actually very curious about, which I take as a good sign), I am going to invite three people into my three part story.

Part I: me?

Possibly my favorite person on earth. She is tiny and trusting and surrounded by a mom and dad and two sisters that make her feel safe and smart and strong (allowing her to be bold and sassy and anything else she wants to be). She has no idea how lucky she is. As she starts her journey through this one life she gets to live, she asks about or explores every single thing she hears, sees, tastes, smells, wants, feels. Each day she gets to play with her beagle and doesn’t have to think about anything other than making sure there are no buttons on her clothes. Her whole goal is to figure out who she is and why she is here. She succeeds…….only to lose her way (or at least her sense of self) to:

Part II: ME!

Probably my least favorite, although that’s not fair. I am just judging her harshly because I haven’t had enough to eat today and too much to eat on most days, recently. And because she is really trying to stick around, sort of wearing out her welcome. This person lives in ALL CAPS BOLD and wears an exclamation point. She can be fun and ballsy and charming (on demand), but is sort of exhausting. She has gotten to do a lot of amazing things in these all caps, which is sometimes hard to let go of, and why she doesn’t want to leave the party.

Part III: Me.

Today (February 14, 2024). Regulation font size with a period.  This is not defeatist.
She is ready and asking to be met where she is. She got to ask all of her questions and figure out who she was in Part I, and got to party and be productive all over the place in Part II.

Now she wants to take it down a notch (also not defeatist) and be:

Present.
Patient.
Participatory.

Proud.

She wants to bring everyone along for the ride, but needs to establish some boundaries (and lead by example, as she is the grown up now, both because she is 56.5  and because all of her grown ups have moved on to Part IV, which will be covered in a separate essay.)

To be continued……(obviously and/or hopefully)

Ps/On a related note: Please see “Should v. Land”