As Is

What does “As Is” even mean. I heard it said this past week in reference to being able to show up just as you are. The ability to be accepted in whatever state you’re in. I’m not familiar with that, at all.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a chameleon. Forever blending in, for my comfort, and for the comfort of others. As I’ve grown older I have thought it is because I don’t actually know who I am. I don’t fully know my own personality, strengths, talents. And the fear of others not liking me, or worse, me not liking myself causes me to choose to fit into whichever mold presents itself at any given moment.

As is. I wish. I’m not wholly me from the minute my feet hit the bottom step in the morning until the minute I say my last prayer at night.

Downstairs I am on as Mom. Truthfully I want to be up in bed still, or at the very least not arguing with a 3 and 4 year old about exactly how they would like their waffles cut. I’m sorry, NOT cut. Should their strawberries have the stem, or do they want it cut off? I didn’t know the real meaning of the phrase “get your big girl panties on” until I had to hold it together in front of my toddlers.

At drop-off I morph slightly into Super Mom. A lot like a regular Mom, but cooler. I want them to see how hard I try, and at the same time I don’t want anyone to know it is hard for me at all. Sometimes I envy the moms and dads that just roll in all cool, calm and collected with their mini Harvard grads trailing peacefully behind. Puhleese!

On the way to work, (at red lights of course) I become a last minute make-up artist extraordinaire coupled with the fastest chin-hair-remover in the east. If everything isn’t just so, people will talk. Someone will make fun of me. They will think I am less-than.

At work, shoot, I don’t know who I am. But it isn’t me. Sure I work my butt off just like anywhere else in life, but I’m not comfortable. I’m not me. I can’t be. There I have to be careful. Maybe most careful of all.

At Pick-Up I’m Super Mom again, only this time a much more tired version. Worn out from a day of work, and worrying about anything and everything I can think of (Which is a lot, I can think of a lot). I turn the corner and smile for those boys. Maybe more for me, so that I can get that jolt of energy they give me when they smile back. I cross my fingers and hope we had “good days” so that I don’t have to feel like I am failing as a parent.

Walking in the front door of my house I turn the dial all the way up to 10 to make sure I have enough juice to get through the night. I walk past the yard that is less then perfectly mowed, and last months Halloween decorations laying on the ground. I tell myself I should toss those pumpkins tonight, but I forget 30 seconds later when I’m playing tug-of-war with the boys and their shoes. From then until bedtime I am not only referee for the boys, but for my own thoughts and feelings as well.

“As Is”, my tush.

I can’t let you see me.

Not un-edited me.

Not the “As Is” version of myself.