Sometimes, I get afraid it has defined me, that sense of grief, loss and illness. But actually, it is about allowing myself to take hold and say: 'This is part of who I am, but not only who I am.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
This is part of the complexity of grief: A piece of you recognizes it is an extreme state, an altered state, yet a large part of you is entirely subject to its demands.
I believe in the importance of individuality, but in the midst of grief I also find myself wanting connection - wanting to be reminded that the sadness I feel is not just mine but ours.
Throughout my life, I have grappled with my own identity, who I am. As a young child, I often felt ambivalent about myself, in fact, confused.
But sometimes I've felt a little constrained by that idea of who I'm meant to be.
Who you are as a person has to do with what you think and how you feel. It has to do with how you love and how you care for people.
There's an idea about who I am that's eternally projected onto me, and then I almost feel like I have to fulfill that role. Even when things come out of my mouth, I want to be sure I'm saying exactly what I mean.
You are who you are at this moment because of everything that's ever happened to you, everything that you carried forward for yourself.
Others will always seek to define you based on what they think you represent or who they think you are. But you have to be the one to control what you do and what you say and how you present yourself.
There's so many things that people do on a daily basis that they do as a way of defining who they are. But really, what defines who you are is when circumstances push you to the edge.
We are, all of us, incoherent text, and just knowing that - knowing that no matter how much you say, 'I am this' and part of you is not that - means that you can say it.