I Am

I am not my religion

I am not my political party

I am not the car I drive, or the clothes I wear

I am not your first introduction to me, or even your second, third or fourth

I am not the color of my skin, the shape of my eyes, the style of my hair

I am not the stores I choose to shop in

I am not the food I choose to eat

I am not what you think

I am a woman, a man, a boy, a girl

I am a voice that wants to be heard and understood

I am someone who is loved by others and that wants to be loved by all

I am my hopes, my dreams, my ideas, my laughter and my tears

I am all that I can be on any given day

I am a person – a human being

I am

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A little bit of poetry for my blog update this week.  Some of these words started filtering through my mind on one of my trips to work last week.  I was thinking about recent events and how filled with discourse and uncertainty the world is and recognizing that it’s not the first time, nor will it be the last.  And somehow everyone always seems to forget during times of heightened upset, that at the core we are all the same.  It’s so easy to get swept up into the pattern of disliking others because they are beneath you, or they are different, or because you have spent so long being seen as “beneath” that you now look at those in places of status as somehow other; not worthy.  So this is just a reminder to myself and to others that we are not all just one thing.  We are not all made of the one interaction we may have with someone that day – there is so much more that makes up the whole of us and at the core of it all, we start with a base that is very much the same.  It is my hope that  people will celebrate diversity while finding the common thread within us all to build upon.