On Being Myself

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content.
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me,
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten
thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal
cheerfulness I can wait.”

-Song of Myself, Walt Whitman, (added emphasis mine)

For a long time, I regarded my personality much the same way I regarded my closet. The things in it were just… there. Some of the items I intentionally picked and are clothing items that I really like. Some were gifted to me from people who know my style. Some are quirky thriftstore finds that had a previous life before making their way to my closet. Some are hand-me-downs from both my older and younger sisters (so I guess hand-me-ups?). And some things patently no longer fit, but I am simply too attached to them to get rid of them. When it comes to my clothing, I don’t even necessarily see the haphazard accumulation of clothing as a good or bad thing; it just is what it is.

It was easy for me to feel the same way about my personality. Some aspects of myself I simply love. To quote the great Zora Neale Hurston, “I love myself when I am laughing….” Other aspects of myself I could honestly take or leave. Some aspects of myself were inherited and aren’t even entirely in my control. Some habits I developed in response to people who are no longer even a part of my life. The accumulation of traits and characteristics that make me me can sometimes feel haphazard. To wit, one of the spiritual truths that has challenged me most lately is the idea that God created my personality with intention.

The whole closet metaphor notwithstanding, it shook my understanding of myself to hear a sermon recently on how God crafts all of us with intention. This means He crafts every aspect about us on purpose, including our personality. I’m not gonna lie, my initial response to that was something along the lines of… #whythough. How could God love my personality? If I was crafted with intention, why/how do I still have these flaws?

I remember one incident in college, the time when one of best friends complimented me on how clear my skin was. My immediate response was to laugh off her compliment. I then informed her that my skin just looked clear from a distance, but if you stood closer to me and really looked at my face, you could see all the blemishes and imperfections and scars on my face. I said all this in a tone that made it clear how incredibly obvious this was to me. She paused for a beat and then said, Well, that’s all of us.

That moment hit home for me because I was so intent on correcting my friend’s erroneous assumption of perfection on my part, even if she was just talking about my complexion. I wanted to disclaim so quickly because it felt false to allow perfection to sit on me as a label even for the smallest of traits, for the slightest of moments. One of the downsides about being so committed to personal improvement is that I tend to see myself as a constant work in progress. This means that is hard for me to accept the good, constant things about myself that I don’t intend on changing (or can’t change) than it is for me to see myself as a mass of flaws, constantly in need of perfecting or fixing.

I am always going to be a work in progress; this I know. But one of my daily affirmations this year is simply this: “You are enough.” Perfect isn’t the goal for me, not anymore. But accepting myself as a being created with intention, in all aspects of life, including my personality, is part of what will help me in simply being myself.