I really want to know....so tell me who are you?

So many women I know struggle with identity throughout their lives.  It's silly; a waste of time, and I don't just mean them - it's me, too. 

I've been thinking about how weight is such a struggle in one way or another.  Aside from pregnancy, on my adult frame my weight has ranged from about 95 to about 145, and at very few points anywhere on that scale have I been happy with my body.  Okay, at none.  That's asinine!  I've seen photos where I can see now that I looked dang near perfect - how could that not have been enough for me?  Why am I still, in my forties, struggling with what I look like?  More importantly, who cares what I look like?  Honestly, who does?  Who cares if I'm a couple of pounds heavy (which is what I've thought I was at all of those 50-pound range of weights)?  Nobody.  Why can't I drop it?  It's one step forward, not two back, but maybe one back.  Slow progress.

Along those lines, what's with changing faces?  I think that I look at least a couple of years younger than I am, but even if I didn't - who cares?  Who cares whether I look 20 or 60?  Why do I care?  Why should I? 

Men.  Through many years of being single, I made what I thought were good choices along the way, but looking back it's clear that I tried time and time again to force square pegs into round holes, and/or trying to change myself to be acceptable.  Tried to be perfect, interesting, and assumed that if something didn't go right, it must be something wrong with me, not just not a fit.  Square pegs don't go in round holes - they just don't! 

And then, as a mother, so many women seem to struggle, aside from all these other issues, with losing their own identities in a way that doesn't seem to affect men.  Our whole being changes when we become mothers - our bodies are unrecognizable, and our priorities are so different.  I'm happy to have different priorities - I love these priorities, and I'm grateful for them.  When I think about things that happened a decade ago, it seems like another lifetime or someone else's experience.  It's not that I don't like who I am, it's that I don't really recongize myself.  Is there such thing as a happy struggle?  I want to be the best version of myself, but I don't always hold up to it.   Keep trying.