Never Lost

Life can be a complicated maze of adult anxieties, missed opportunities, and the drudge of everyday imperatives. For years I have kept my nose to the grindstone, putting myself through private high school and college, and later, grad school and university. Work-study-sleep. Work-study-sleep. It was a pattern I lived for many years.
Somewhere in that seemingly endless, but predictable round of activities, I felt that I lost a sense of who I was. Sleep-deprived, lonely, and anxious that I wouldn't be able to get the grades or meet my life goals, I lost sight of that primal, inner me. When I realized that I felt disconnected and ungrounded, it was too late.
One day, as I idly leafed through a photo album, I came across this picture. I remember posing for my mother as she took it, out in the road in front of our Mississippi home. A neighbor lady had dropped off some old clothes for me to play dress up in, and I wasted no time donning her hat and gloves, scarf, and those wonderful blue high heels. I recall throwing my head back and looking over my shoulder at my mother, who was laughing at my antics from behind the camera.
Studying the picture, I had to laugh aloud--both because it is a funny picture, but also from the instant recognition that this was what I had been missing. I keep a copy of it over my desk. It is who I am through and through.