Suddenly Our Eyes Are Words

Reshaping identity after loss

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we have to step back and look at where we are, who we are, and who we are becoming and then ask - is this me? Is this what I want? Am I content to be who I am right now?

Is this the path that is really mine, and am I willing to see it all the way to the end? Is it time to put my feet on a brand new trail?

“Someday, somewhere — anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.” —Pablo Neruda

When my sister died, I felt like everything I was had been ripped off of me, torn away from me - like ripping off a band-aid and taking with it my skin, my blood, my heart. Forcing me still, to look at the deepest, strangest parts of myself and confront my exposed identity.

What the hell is identity anyway? Who are we really?

Self-identity is basically how you see yourself and this perspective is shaped by how you were born, your experiences as a child, the culture and media you are exposed to and the decisions you make every day. We curate this window-like view of ourselves as we grow — placing things into the view out the window and ignoring everything outside of the frame. Can’t see it, it’s not there! We identify ourselves by our hobbies and the people we spend time with, how we feel about ourselves. We use this window to place ourselves in the world and figure out how to move through it. We clutch at this identity like a lifelong, ignoring what parts of ourselves lie outside of the window-frame, forgotten and dusty.

Then something happens — loss, change, death. That window of identity becomes absolutely obliterated. Smashed to pieces and you are left standing there wondering who the hell you are and what is this thing we call life?

Is it mine? Is it yours? Do I like it? Do I know what I’m doing?

There’s a period of time after great change were we are kind of lost. Not really sure what we want to identify with anymore and just wishing things could go back to the way they were. At some point you begin to wander around, trying to see what you can salvage and put back together. This is when some of us begin to see a lot of things we didn’t know where there, didn’t know were part of us. We perceive ourselves differently now and a lot of things are exposed that maybe we weren’t really ready to see — like our actual fear of loss. The times we let down our friends instead of standing up for them. What we want out of this fragile, strange life.

All of a sudden we have all these new pieces of ourselves and we begin to realize there’s part of this life, this identity that we don’t want anymore. We don’t want to be the same person we were before. I don’t want to be the same person I was before my sister died. I can’t be the same person — I am not the same person. How could I go on in the same way, when everything about my life has completely changed from the inside out?

Sometimes after a big loss or change - the inside doesn’t match the outside anymore, and that’s okay. Sometimes you have to let yourself grieve the version of you that you were before, and accept that it’s okay to want to completely change your life and your identity.

I think everyone reaches this point in their life eventually. Suddenly your eyes are words, or roses, or something alien altogether and everything around you looks so different. You realize that you’ve got to either let everything fall apart so you can rebuild, or you’ll never be able to make it through the day to day mundane.

After experiencing my sister’s passing, I found myself challenging my beliefs, my core values, my priorities. I even challenged my own sense of belonging — did I really belong here in this world? In this country, in this town, in this home, in my own skin?

My sister was a central part of my life — my go to for every problem, for every good thing. When she died all I could think of for months was how it felt like I’d lost a limb or an organ. Like such a crucial part of my anatomy was missing that I couldn’t possibly be expected to get up and go to work, let alone sit up and breathe!

And if my own body was no longer working the way it used to, how could I remain the same person?

A big shift in identity also feels like walking through fire (but without the excruciating skin damage). It’s intense and all consuming, overwhelming and absolutely makes you feel crazy. Reshaping your concept of self after loss requires that you challenge all your existing assumptions not just about yourself, but about the world. You have to look at your priorities and values and the culture you participate in and think okay — what can stay, and what needs to go? You are forced to make meaning out of your own self-destruction in order to re-construct yourself. And it’s scary! It’s overwhelming and sometimes you think, what’s the point of building a brand new life? But in your heart you know things cannot remain as they were. If you are to keep growing and maybe even flourishing after a big loss or change, you’ve got let parts of yourself and your dreams fall away.

I suppose not everyone will feel called to this wild reshaping to in the same way. I suppose it depends a bit on both how brave you are, and how you were living before your loss. But regardless of how you feel called to shift things, things will shift anyway. You can either leap into the unknown and allow yourself to be remade by it - or you can fight it the whole way.

I’m still in the thick of it myself. I tried for a while to maintain a sense of continuity in my self-identity. I tried to build a couple things to honor my sister’s legacy thinking that would fill the hole. That would be enough to make me feel like I had a grasp on who I was and who I am becoming. It just felt like I was trying to hold a slippery fish in my bare hands. There was nothing to grasp on to, and every time I tried to clamp down on who I was, it was as if I got further away from myself.

So I finally had to let it go, let the fish swim away as fast as lightning. I had to let my eyes become words and sink into discovering who I could become after this great change.

I ride the waves now, reevaluating each shift in identity as it comes. Leaving space for new priorities and values to take root. Making changes in my external life that match the internal rebuilding. I take long walks by myself and just let myself learn how to breathe again. I write long letters to myself, sorting out what really matters to me, letting my heart and my brain communicate and figure it out slowly.

You see, we want to feel like we belong. We want to feel connection. Raymond Carver said it best:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

We want to know who we are so that we can feel ourselves beloved on the earth. And I think perhaps one thing that knocks us down profoundly after any kind of loss is that because we no longer recognize ourselves, we no longer find ourselves beloved.

I’m writing this today to let you know that it’s okay to be in this liminal unknown space. It’s okay to not know who you are anymore. It’s okay to want to be someone different. It’s okay to sit down and learn to breathe again while you confront your own identity — in fact it’s probably necessary.

Be gentle with yourself, and allow yourself to let go of everything that doesn’t feel like you anymore. Allow yourself to put your feet on a different path, and if you can, trust that this grand unraveling is part of the process.

If you can let yourself unravel, and then let yourself trust in the rebuilding, I think you’ll feel yourself beloved on the earth again. You’ll find that the shift in the way your eyes see the world (and yourself) will lead to you a bigger, more expansive life that forms around the gaping hole in your heart and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be okay.