There is a story of a painter who had been wandering aimlessly for days in search of himself. He came upon a river that was impossible to cross, there he met a young girl fetching water who was curious as to why he was attempting such an impossible task. She also observed that he looked tattered and hungry from what seemed to be weeks of wandering. She asked him one question; "what are his reasons?". He told the little girl he had left home a few days ago in search of himself. Based on his response she asked him the following question. She said “Yesterday I lost a clip in my house and I can’t find it anymore, can you help me look for it along this river bank?" The young man did not understand the meaning of that strange question, and while the girl smiled waiting for the answer he said: “If you lost it at home, we would not find it here!” She replied to him saying “if you’re lost why are you trying to find yourself in a place where you have never been?”

"Where should I be searching then?" the young man asked, interested and annoyed at the same time. "Inside you!" she said laughing thinking what a silly question to ask. She filled the bucket and approached the young man and invited him to drink, then asked him: "Is there a river in the bucket?" "Of course not!" the young man immediately replied, "there is only water!" "Yeah," she replied, "I'm like river water!" The young man looked at her thinking she was stupid. She went on. “My name is Martina”, she told him, “And the river you see has its own name, but I can't put it in the bucket, even if I fill it with its water. You too cannot meet Martina now, even if you talk to me. I always look the same, like the river, but I change, like you and like the water of the river. Every bucket I give to my goat is always the water of the river that fills it, yet it is always new water, different water. We are not, but we become, we are always new and different, like the water of the river". She looked at the young man and said: "If you look hard, I am sure you will find yourself. “And if you really want to take a bucket of that water”, she concluded, “you have to go back to the source, here you will never find what you are looking for, it's inside you!"

I am certain we can all identify with this young man. How often have we gone in search of ourselves outside of ourselves? There was a moment in my life when I too looked for identifiable traits that would define me or would reveal my purpose. I was searching for answers from a society riddled with labels, prejudices, and beliefs. I unintentionally created a maze; imprisoning and suppressing the very traits and unique characteristics I was searching for. I had woven a web so tangled and chaotic, conforming to what society expected me to be and what the persons around me believed I should be. I was lost, searching for answers in an unfamiliar space.

For those who through circumstances and experiences have lost their way or identity and are searching for the things that made them feel complete, know this, past experiences, trauma and pain do not distort who you were. Those experiences now become apart of your identity. I’ve encountered and dealt with things in the past that made me feel like a stranger in my own skin. I went searching for clues as to who I was, trying to put together a puzzle when none of the pieces fit. I exhumed aspects of a life once lived and examined each piece carefully for a thread to connect the past to the present. I desperately wished I could be and not what I had become. However the deeper I searched, the more lost I felt. I belatedly realized that I had shed the layers of an identity that served its purpose, one no longer useful to my present. Throughout the process of self-discovery, I learned that I could never truly lose myself because one’s identity is a multifaceted layer of past, present and future; a perpetual phoenix-like state of re-capitulation.

We are never lost, we just tend to forget.

“Start with yourself. Take care of yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your being.”

To be continued…….