The Real Slim Shady

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”  That’s what happened to me once during my years of substance abuse.  I looked in the mirror, leaned forward, and stared deeply into my own eyes—and the abyss stared back.  My eyes were completely empty of expression, spirit, and identity; they were empty of life.  I was so badly frightened by that moment that I did my best to avoid mirrors from then on.

When I was newly sober, the topic of identity came up quite often in my daily meditations.  The message was always along these lines: “If you don’t know who you are, you’ll let other people decide it for you.  And you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to be that and failing.  It’s not a great setup for long-term sobriety.”  I knew my identity in Christ.  As His child, I’d been forgiven and redeemed.  I’d been saved by grace and knew I was loved beyond measure.  Yet when I looked at my reflection, my eyes still didn’t give me any answers when I asked, Who are you? 

I kept thinking of the Video Music Awards ceremony when Eminem performed, asking as part of his rap, “Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?”  Hundreds of Eminem lookalikes followed him into the theater and walked down the aisles—the message being that they were all imitators, not originals.  So I asked myself, “Will the real Renee Phillips please stand up?”  I didn’t want to be a chameleon who changed my personality to fit every occasion.  I didn’t want to be any of the personas my newly lucid but still disturbed brain told me I was.   And I refused to be the person others thought I should be.  I set out to find “the real Renee Phillips”—and I did.  This is just a small sample of the real me that I discovered:

• I love words.  I especially like words that aren’t used much anymore, words like “mollycoddle,” “tomfoolery,” “cattywampus,” and “discombobulate.”  Puns, palindromes and spoonerisms make me ridiculously happy.  And my favorite word in the English language is “husband.”  I’ve been married for over twenty-two years, and I still feel a thrill when I say it.
• I love reality TV, the art of Vincent Van Gogh, knock-knock jokes, and Monty—not necessarily in that order.
• I have many failings, but I can say this about myself: I’m the best cat mom ever.  My boys drink out of china cups, have multiple heated beds, wear the newest, most fashionable collars, and have absolutely no rules.
• Jack Kerouac once said, “It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.”  I wish I’d written that; it captures the essence of who I am in one short sentence.  My heart beats on the outside of my skin—I feel the world so deeply that it physically hurts me at times.  I cry when I smell lilacs, when Seamus is in my arms, purring, or when I see the kind of sunset that forever sears itself into my memory.
• I love books.  I love reading them, smelling them, looking at them, and being surrounded by them.  The other night, my bedside table made a groaning noise.  Monty looked at it and said, “You have a serious situation.  Your table is going to come crashing down from all the books.  You should put at least half of those somewhere else.”  I thought about it, but as I told Monty, I need all those books.  Some are half-read, some are next on my “to-be-read” list, and some are favorites that I want close by in case of a sudden, inexplicable dearth of books.  Monty was kind enough not to mention the many other piles of books I have around the house or the hundreds I have on my Kindle.
• I’m scatter-brained and forgetful.  I rarely know what day of the week it is.  Today, I was sure it was Monday and started getting ready for a meeting before I saw on my phone that it was Sunday.  I lost the PlayStation remote last night and didn’t find it until this afternoon—in my sewing basket.
• I secretly admire Hugh Hefner for having had the courage to live his life in pajamas.
• If I could invite three people, living or dead, for a dinner party, I wouldn’t—I’m an introvert.  But if I had to, I’d invite Dr. Phil, Lucille Ball, and my favorite poet, Louis MacNeice.  Dr. Phil could give Lucy marriage counseling and save her marriage to Desi, which would result in more episodes of “I Love Lucy” and the happy ending I always wanted for them.  Dr. Phil could also offer rehab to Louis MacNeice for his alcoholism, saving his life and giving him many more years in which to write the kind of poems that turn words into music.  Once Lucy and Louis left, Dr. Phil could spend some time solving . . . well, me.
• I’m deeply curious about people—where they live, what they think about, what motivates them, and why they choose the lives they have.
• I love my family fiercely and protectively, with every fiber of my being.  Every single one of them contributes something uniquely beautiful to my life.  They can break me, mend me, make me laugh, and drive me to my knees in prayer when I know one of them is struggling.
• I live entirely too much in my head and not nearly enough in the real world.  I’ve been known to blur the line between reality and my own thoughts.  Monty tells me quite often that it’s not fair to people for me to create a backstory for them in my head and believe it.  I suppose he’s right, but sometimes the backstories I invent are much more interesting than reality.
• I have a tattoo on my right wrist that says, “Look up” and one on my left wrist of a cat with a semicolon as part of his leg.  The cat is for our beloved Ricky and for our boys.  The semicolon in his leg reminds me that my story is ongoing.  Even when pain and darkness come and I feel like I can’t go on, the semicolon tells me that I can—I have before; I will again.  A semicolon is a pause, not the end.
• If I could go back in time, I’d go to a John Denver concert with my brother.  After the concert, I’d talk to John and warn him not to fly a plane that he made from a kit—he quite literally lost his head because of that failed experiment.
• When night falls, I fall—in love with the moon and stars.

Why does any of this matter?  Why did I need to figure out who I am?  Why should you?  Because being a chameleon is exhausting.  Because you can’t be happy, joyous, and free if you’re spending all of your time trying to be someone you’re not.  And because you certainly can’t have an abundant life if you’re filling it with activities that aren’t you, that don’t light you up, that only get you from one day to the next.  This is it—your one life.  You don’t get to play around and practice and figure out who you are, then come back and do it right the next time.  Take it from me, the real Renee Phillips, standing up and asking: Who are you?