Identity Crisis?

I was talking with my sister and she commented with bleievable force about something she liked. It caught me off guard how sure she was of what she said and without thinking I said, "I wish I knew what I liked and why I like it?" She looked at me in surprise and again I responded without thinking because I realized how true my comment was. I told her that I feel like I'm finding out for the first time who I am and what I like as opposed to what I do not like. She told me that it comes with time and understanding of yourself that you learn who you are and I've always known that, it just surprised me to hear myself declare that I didn't know who I was. I turn 25 in February, I feel like I should know who I am, but I'm afraid that I don't. When I was 18 I moved to New York on a whim to become a nanny. When I say, "on a whim", I mean that one day I called the agency that placed me and expressed my interest to become a nanny, and 2 days later I filled out the paperwork and within a week that I initially made contact with them I had passed the background checks and they were showing my profile to potential families. The first family called me the day my profile was shown and I accepted their offer. I moved out one month after I made that first phone call, which is very fast in the nanny world. I wish I could say that my intention for moving out to New York was pure and for the adventure and experiences I would have, but the truth is that I was afraid of what home had to offer. When I say home, I mean the state of Utah. The town I grew up in was a wonderful town, but girls from this town were notorious for marrying young, having never even experiencing college-life, and making lots and lots of babies and never really experiencing anything else in life. And, while that works just fine for some people I knew it wouldn't work for me and I also knew that if I started dating someone, I would settle for them, even if it wasn't what I wanted. What I am trying to say is, I knew I would take on the identity that they wanted me to be and I was scared to death that the identity would wear off later on in life when I really found out who I was. I was afraid of marrying for an identity. I'm not saying that the girls who do marry young are marrying for an identity, I'm saying that I'm different from those girls and I've never really known who I am.

There is a beautiful irony to this story. That irony is that in the time that I have been home from New York, the guys that I have dated are all different from each other in the most extreme ways and I was always adapting to who I thought they wanted me to be. It wasn't bad in the beginning, because those guys were fairly normal, but as I dated more and more guys, they progressively became more and more troubled and with more severe problems and I was morphing into something rather scary. I went downhill fast. I never experimented with drugs because, well, I wasn't that stupid, but I compromised my integrity to a severe degree and I knew what I was doing, I was aware of the decisions I was making and there were so many warning signs and yet, I continued on, moving from bad to worse, to downright horrific. I remember my ex, we'll call him Army-boy as he is in the Army, I dated him before my most recent ex, Baby Daddy.

One night I got a call from Army-boy asking me to come out to see him. I was excited to see him because it had been a while since we had seen each other due to his responsibilites with the National Guard. I drove out to his house and he invited me in. The moment I walked into the house I knew something was wrong, it was tangible in the air, and every sense I posess immediately went on alert. We walked into the kitchen and, in order of appearance, I saw his father, two long heavy duty flashlights, broken chairs, holes in the wall, and an open bottle of vodka on the table nearly empty. He casually introduced me to his father and then had me sit down. His dad went on to explain to me what had occurred that night. Army-boy had called his father in a rage and drunk beyond measure, threatening to kill himself. His dad went over to his house straight away and a fight ensued. His dad didn't dare leave him alone and asked Army-boy who he should call, and that's where I come into the picture. Through simple dialogue between Army-boy and his father, things escalated and Army-boy hit a door so hard that it fell off it's hinges, splitting in half. I was scared beyond belief and his father said, "Army-boy, that isn't necessary. Stop it, you're scaring Kathryn!" Army-boy turned around to go ballistic on his father and started stalking towards him and I was so afraid I called his name, "Army-boy!" He looked at me with a fierceness on his face that still turns my stomach to think back on it and then his face softened and he approached me, cupped my face in his hands and said, "I would never hurt you. You're my safety, you're my hope." I stood as still as I could, though my knees were shaking, and his father said something, and at the sound of his father's voice, Army-boy again became tense and enraged. His father left before any further damage was done and I was left there with my suicidal drunk and angry boyfriend. He started to yell at me, "I'm tough! I'm hard! You think I'm weak?! I'm strength!" I was alone with him and I stuttered, "I know you're tough... I never doubt that, I know you're strong... I" and before I could finish it, he started repeatedly to hit another door with his bloodied fist, it cracked in half and I screamed because I was terrified. He turned around as if surprised that I was there and then he started crying and apologizing to me that he had scared me, and then he held me in his arms to comfort me. I got him to bed and went to sit in the other room. I was scared to be alone with him that night and I wanted to be awake should he wake up in a rage. I didn't want to be caught off guard. I remember thinking to myself, "This is not okay. This is bad. What have you gotten yourself into, Kathryn." I knew I needed to break up with him, but I couldn't because that was abandonment, and I hated myself that I couldn't leave him. I thought about it for hours that night, I knew what kind of future I would have staying with Army-boy and it horrified me. I knew I would be safer and happier if I left him, but I couldn't and I remember thinking to myself, "Kathryn, you are making a decision right now. Remember this decision for when things go bad. Remember that you are not a victim and that you chose this right here, right now." I knew who I had to be, the identitly that Army-boy needed, I was his safety and hope, but that's a hard order to fill when the person needing it isn't ready to accept it into his life.

By the time Baby Daddy came along, I was ready for a change. Army-boy had been cheating on me and I was always there when he needed to feel safe and needed something better to hope for. Baby Daddy was a dream in comparison to what I was used to. He was light-hearted and he made me laugh. He had dreams and goals and he liked me for who I was, which meant a lot because I didn't like who I was. He called me his inspiration and I was always encouraging him to go for what he wanted when he doubted himself. It was easier being someone's cheerleader than someone's safety from themselves and I thrived in the role of motivational speaker. But, eventually Baby Daddy began to change and become more anxious. He blamed it on lack of sleep and stress and I willingly believed him because that's what a cheerleader does, they believe in and cheer on their team, even when they have doubts of their success. Baby Daddy started to become distant and he started telling me how to wear my makeup and would punish me if I wore too much makeup by withholding his affection. I gave up religion because I knew that the things I was doing were wrong and I was ashamed of who I was. Baby Daddy would never do anything with my family and every time I was with my family he would call me or text me asking when I would be done because he missed me and needed me. I became distant from my family and before I knew it people I had never even met were calling me and threatening my life. Turns out, Baby Daddy was a meth-addict and drug dealer. I ended up breaking our engagement and leaving him and at that point he was too lost to even care that I was gone. I remember thinking missing Army-boy so much and thinking how much I appreciated him and then I remembered how dangerous he was and then thinking that I would take him back in a heart beat because, "An alcohlic is safer than a meth-addict." The scary thing about that is that I believed it. Then I found out I was pregnant.

I wish that I could tell you that I know, without a doubt and with complete clarity, who I am, but I have no clue. What I have learned about myself and do know is that I am strong, I survived the most difficult thing I've ever had to do and will ever have to do- I placed my baby boy in the care of a couple that is more capable than I am at this point in my life. I have vision, I understand that I am not ready to raise a child, especially alone, and I know he will be better off with the family he is with now. I have integrity, I won't lie to you and say that abortion never crossed my mind, and I especially won't lie to you and say that I wasn't disgusted in myself when the thought to terminate my pregnancy did cross my mind. I have always been pro-life and have debated and written college papers on the importance of pro-life and have scathingly spoken about girls who choose to terminate pregnancies because "there are so many people out there longing for children of their own who cannot produce them on their own." I could have terminated my pregnancy and no one would have ever known I was pregnant, but I also knew that to do so would go against everything I have ever believed in and that I would lose the last miniscule bit of respect that I had for myself if I did terminate. I am compassionate, I can now relate with those girls who terminated their pregnancies because I now fully understand how scared and ashamed they were to be able to make that decision. I am empathetic, I truly feel the hurt that other's feel and mourn with them when they mourn, I want to help them get through their grief because I grieve. And, I can love and I owe that knowledge to my baby boy who taught me what love really feels like. That's not a bad start to figuring out who I am.

I view hardship as a gift because it teaches us what matters the most in our lives. The trials we experience can affect great change if we allow them to, they stretch us beyond ourselves so that we are capable of accepting the change that is before us, we just need to not be afraid of the greatness we can achieve. I know that I can achieve great things and the beauty of it all is that, now I'm not afraid to achieve greatness in my life. That much I know.