“Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.”- Jay Z

I guess have wandered for most of my life, fifty-nine years, who am I. I take out my wallet when asked for identification, my birth certificate states my full name, the date of my birth, and where I was born, for me that was the province of Ontario, Canada.

But I still ask the question, who am I? Is it the color of my eyes, my gender, my faith, or even my anatomically body. Is it define by the ones I have chosen to love, those who I have decided to let into my circle of friends.

This question of identity was brought home that one sunny day when I found myself in a hospital ward that deals with people who are suffering and challenged with mental health issues. Even in there I hid a part of me, a part that I thought, and maybe still think, is hideous.

I started this blog because it piqued my interest, the wanna be journalist inside me, and maybe a wanna be novelist. I am the first one to admit that my strength is not writing. I probably make grammatical errors after time I publish a post.

I chose what I knew the most, it was my faith and my knowledge and understanding of the Bible. My posts didn’t move the needle. Oh, every once in awhile someone would take note of what I had written. Yet, there wasn’t a fire in me, a fire that said, that urged me to sit at the computer and write posts. My writing then was spotty with my thoughts rambling from post to post.

Feeling like I belong, I have it all together, and nothing to worry about, these descriptions speaks of someone of who I wish I was. I entered high school weighing less than ninety-nine pounds. My muscle tone was in hiding, so at the height of six foot one inch I looked like something of a half made coat tree.

I relate to others who are belittled, treaded upon, and pushed to the sides of the ride by those who are maybe smarter, are at the top of their game. I still do not have it all together, but, I have learned ways to mask those feelings of inadequacies, those feeling of inferiority. It may answer why I watched cartoons and TV shows with super heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, and even Batman.

I would watch shows, see posts of, men who had a six pack for ribs, and there muscle tone ripple from their shoulder down to their forearm. Honestly, I still have feelings of inadequacies when I see some guy who looks like he has spent all of his extra time in a gym somewhere to give himself that buffed look.

Maybe, my writings, my posts brings across of a guy who has it all together. A guy who knows who he really is. I am far from that, I am not that super guy like the one you would see on an Harlequin romance novel. No, let me assure you, I am not some six foot, a body with ripped muscles from my head down to my feet. No, I am not that man who could pick up a lady and whisk her out from the gangs while held by my arms as I swing her to the ledge of a window.

However, my identity, the person that knows itself when he closes his eyes at bedtime, that person is under there somewhere, somewhere beyond the words written together, the being behind those words that create paragraphs, that speaks about those things I have faced in this body, one person who needs medication to keep me stable, one medication to help start my day, an another one that is meant to keep me stable. Then at the end of the day a pill to give me a calm, and a peaceful night’s sleep. All those medications are taken, that have their purpose to keep this bi-polar man walking up-right.

So dear reader, who am I, who is this person that wakes up day after day, places two feet on the floor, and does his best to be the best human I can project in this world that I am travelling through.

So, I am the sum total of a man, who has a function, a man who is working through this life being the person I am meant to be. To learn, love, belong, engage, to listen, learn from others that I encounter along this path, a path at it’s very best, a road map, from beings of all different sizes, shapes, and colors.

So, hear me, listen to me, engage with me, and help me in my path of who I am on this journey. I am not complete, I still am learning, still encountering along this journey those things that are helping to make the best man I can be. For I am more that I was yesterday, still being shaped and molded into what I hope and pray will be the best, just me, the best me.!