The Authentic Self

I ate an entire chocolate bar a few hours prior to bed.  Within the grander scheme of things this is not a particularly bad event unless you have lived a caffeine free existence for the last twenty years, which I have.  So this is way I happen to be up writing another blog at twelve minutes past Three A.M. much to the dismay of my boys, who I might add are wandering about the apartment howling their displeasure.
While I was staring at the darkened ceiling over the past, oh, four hours, I was reflecting on what it means to have an authentic self.  Until I entered recovery fifteen years ago I never really understood the concept.  I had, for most of my life, been driven by the dark demons of my childhood experiences, not that I had remembered them.  That was my unique situation from about age twelve until well after I entered recovery.  I had an unmanageable life which I didn't know was unmanageable for reasons that were so deeply buried or jettisoned so far into the stratosphere that I was completely unaware of their existence.  Sounds maddening doesn't it.  I guess it was, not that I knew it.  In hindsight it was really the only option available at the time.  I get that now.  How does that old saying go?  Hindsight is twenty twenty.  It's also easy to say…. if I had known then what I know now….. but I didn't.
I started to lose my authentic self when I was eight.  That was when all the trauma started; however, I does serve any purpose to rehash old events, that is not the reason I'm writing.  I am writing in the middle of the night because I ate that damn chocolate bar….. no, wait, there is a point here, I know there is, if I could just focus…..   Oh, right, recovering my authentic self.    Sorry for the momentary rambling, sleeplessness does that to me.  I do have empathy for my friends, they put up with so much of my rambling.  My former therapist use to say that I spoke in paragraphs, not an entirely good thing to do when you're a budding writer.  But I digress.  Do I even know what that word digress means?  Sorry, rambling again.  My authentic self.  God I hope this is not an example of my authentic self.   Oops, rambling again…..
Excuse me while I take a moment…..  Ok, I think I'm firing on almost all my cylinders.
My recovery!  My recovery has been a lifetime exercise of relocating my authentic self.  No easy task I might add particularly because I had no idea where it had gone or how I could find it.  There were hints of its existence, in my eyes when I looked in the mirror, in my spontaneous sense of humor on those rare occasions when it revealed itself, in a deep sense of empathy at witnessing other people's powerlessness.  I remember back during my college days, in the mid Nineties, before I had ever entered the rooms, I was required to take two art classes outside my art history major.  It was part of my undergraduate requirements before transferring over to State.  I enjoyed working with my hands and I enjoyed photography so I decided to take both Photography and Ceramics.  As I said I enjoyed working with my hands and ceramics gave me the opportunity to play with clay.  The tactile experience of handing and forming things was very satisfying; however, I can say now that my future DIY abilities where subtly being forecasted and they were not pretty.  (Just ask my friend Paul who recently helped me with my latest DIY disaster.)  While others in class where turning out beautifully formed tea pots and vases with gorgeously fired coloring I was turning out lopsided things that looked like a kindergarden copy of the leaning tower of Pisa.  Only not so good.  When I turned to photography during the next semester I was much more hopeful.  I already owned a camera, one that my friend Mr. Mark had given to me, and I had created some really beautiful photographs.  I actually loved going out with Mr. Mark.  He has a really good eye for things and the talent to make them happen.  When we went out I enjoyed taking photos of iconic things like the Golden Gate Bridge and the more subtle  things like a father and his son sharing a beautifully intimate moment together in Union Square.  When the photography class started we had the usual assignments.  Take photos of this tree or that landscape, take a photo at night, or using this exposure and that F stop.  As the semester went on my teacher started to notice things in my work not that she told me about it.  It was just after the midterm that she pulled me aside with one of my photos.  It was an intimate setting I had created in my kitchen, one where I had an open book on the table, a crumpled cloth napkin, a plate of cookies, and a cup of tea.  I had taken a long time to create that scene.  I had placed everything just so, crumpled the napkin to mimic someone who had just tossed it aside.  I waited for the afternoon sun to hit the edges of the book cover in just the right place I wanted before I snapped the shutter a few times.  I was convinced that it had all the hallmarks of a dutch light painter's still life only in a photograph.  My teacher was sweet.  She pulled me aside with my photo in hand and said very gently that there was no humanity present in my scene.  I was crushed to say the least.  She explained that everything was set up perfectly but that there was no evidence that anyone had, say taken a sip of the tea, or taken a bite of a cookie.  There were no crumbs on the table, no drips of tea on the side of the cup.  It was perfectly perfect in every way except for being a part of a living experience.  And so the class went on.  Photo after photo was essentially a repeat of the last.  I did try but to no avail.  I just couldn't create humanity in my work.  Near the end of the semester we were told to plan a finally project.   I already knew what mine was going to be.  I had thought about it for months, had already done some of the planning, and had asked my friend Ralph to assist me with being the person I would photograph. When the time came we both went out, me with my camera and tripod, Ralph with all the costuming.   My final project was set in Lafayette Park near where I lived.  The premise of the project was a guy (Ralph) was walking in the park on a warm afternoon enjoying the beautiful day.   Then, while he walked down one of the paths he happened to experience a random meeting of his former self, essentially, he and his former self would pass through each other as they walked in opposite directions.  The series of photos would show how the random experience happened, how they both knew on some level that it had happened, how they then purposely forced another encounter, and finally, in the last photo, how they rejoined each others body's crossing the spans of time and place.  We did the photo shoot over the course of an afternoon.  All the joint photos were done using double exposure.  The others were just regular photographs.  That next day I took the finished film to the school lab, developed it, chose the seven photos I was going to use, printed them , and mounted them.  The second to last day of the semester I handed in the project.  I received high praise from the teacher and my classmates and I got a A for my project and for the semester.  I didn't realize it at the time but this project was a telling sign for me.  This project was my first deep subconscious understanding that my authentic self still existed and that it was out there waiting for me to reconnect with it.  It wasn't until ten years later, during my third year of recovery, that on a much deeper plane, my authentic self would reemerge along within the first signs my childhood trauma.  Twelve years on I have a very different view.
If I were to describe how I see my authentic self today, through sleep deprived eyes I might add, I would say this: my authentic self is empathic, compassionate, and loving.  It is less anxious than  it use to be but can sometimes still be angst ridden.  My authentic self has a spontaneous sense of humor when not controlled by me and a deadly one when it is, kind of like a comedian dying a slow and painful death on stage as he tries to tell joke after joke to an increasingly comatose audience.  My authentic self can be frustratingly fixed on controlling situations and others especially when that little kid inside is bouncing off the walls.  My authentic self can also be vulnerable, willing, and trusting.  In fact that is more often the norm now in opposed to being the aberration.  The difference between that guy in the park who happened upon his former self and me now is that I have found out how to nurture my moving from an "I" existence to "We" existence, from existing in a perpetual state of survival where I had to be in control of everything and everyone to a place where I actively attempt to continually right size myself in relation to my Higher Power.  Where the "We" is the continual movement of my life towards a place of subtly prayerful actions in an attempt to seek the guidance I need to live more fully in the body and spirit of my authentic self; and I have to say I'm not doing too badly in this present moment, which is all I have right now, at least until the next present moment reveals itself.