Do I recognize me?
By Ian Pereira Miles | He/Him/His | Leavenworth, WA
Do I recognize me?
For much of my life, and at times even now, my identity has been something to fear. I bottled it, left it on a shelf, and allowed others to define it for me. This is a pretty easy way to hold my identity. It’s formless, adaptable, flexible — qualities that I believe are good to hold with one’s identity.
But the danger comes when I cannot recognize myself.
When my sense of self–of worth–is so deeply embedded in others, that I have trouble making even the most inconsequential of choices. I’ve prioritized others so far above myself that I convinced myself for so long that I had nothing to give. I could not recognize all that I had to give.
Raised since the age of four in two households, I think my identity felt so small because I was constantly adapting to new people and places coming in and out of my life. With so much happening outside my control, it became natural to just let things happen and adjust accordingly. My opinions and desires were lost in a sea of outside influences, and if I did try to assert them, they usually went unacknowledged. I became “easy-going,” “kind,” and “gentle.” Throughout childhood I always had one close friend who I could connect with, show myself to more fully, but in group dynamics I would fade into the background, drifting, going with the flow.
When it came time to apply for colleges, I felt a pretty deep desire to move somewhere on my own. I wanted to forge a path, discover myself and put some distance between my (lack of) self and the world I grew up in. My sense of self among family, friends, and on my own felt stretched in many directions, none of which felt like they were truly me. In college, I began to embrace and express my queerness. I found joy in baking, dancing, music, and more, but I was still struggling to love myself.
I'm still working to sift out my deepest desires from the desires of those around me. It's been a slow, careful process, figuring out many things that don’t actually work for me before landing on things that do. That journey is continuous. But I feel now that I am formed, in a way that I have not recognized for most of my life. It's a recognition that I feel would have been nearly impossible to realize on my own. For it is only after connecting intensely in community, particularly religious and spiritual ones, that I have begun to recognize the infinite beauty of my identity.
All of the people, places, and experiences in my life and in the lives of my ancestors, are a part of my identity. For better or worse, I get to carry those with me and share them with others. All of the bad dates, burnt dishes, screaming matches, and lost love lives in me. They live alongside so many shared meals, stellar dance parties, seats under trees, and countless rewatches of Everything Everywhere All at Once. I can recognize and make room for all of that now, acknowledging how endlessly interconnected it all is. I would not be who I am without the heartbreak as much as without the love.
Fear, longing, and self-denial will continue to bubble up, but my community, my practice, my adherence to the Dharma helps cultivate spaciousness.
This spaciousness transforms all my feelings and experience into bubbles in a sea of foam, floating in the simultaneously collective and unique ocean that is my identity.
