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The name my parents gave me is Steve Michael Reedy. Other than that I am undefinable, and I like it that way, though it makes it hard for others to understand me. I've known myself for 37 years and I still don't understand me... which is a good thing. If I truly understood myself I'd probably get very board and become someone else. I have several life goals that I am enjoying the process of achieving. As of now I'm a practicing nationally certified medical massage therapist and in the process of getting my masters in counseling. The rest of my life is spent doing things that either enrich me or amuse me... or both. I am always grateful for who I was, who I am, and who I will be.
How do we define ours selves so that others can understand us without limiting us to that definition? Some of us try to explain ourselves using our past. For example, I am the first of a third generation to be born off a farm in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. My father, a hard working provider, was constantly being promoted which uprooted my family about every three years to another state in the union. I’ve lived in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and now Texas. I was brought up in string of Southern Baptist Churches until I was eleven. Though my family stopped going to church regularly, the beliefs instilled in me during that time became the foundation of the perception I used to define my reality. I was engaged twice and married once when I was twenty-three to a beautiful woman from Cleburne, Texas. Sadly, that relationship was doomed months before we even said, “I do”, but we loved each other and did our best with what we had.
After the tragic but necessary ending of my marriage at 27, I explored a new self-concept that aided in distracting me from a dysthymic form of depression hidden in side my mind since I was ten years old. There are no words to describe how insane, exciting, and unbelievably joyful that period of my life became. I met someone, fell in love, and was given the most intense and emotional experience I had ever had with another human being. It was then that I began to notice something was wrong with me. Everything in my life seemed to be perfect, and yet I was still having unprovoked bouts of depression. It didn’t make sense. So, I asked myself the question that changed the course of my life and created who I am today, “why am I depressed?”
The four-year journey toward the answer to that question transformed me; the way I think, the way I eat, the way I interact with others, my health, my priorities, my clothes, my occupation, my friends, my lovers, my relationship with my family, my perception of reality… everything. Through this transformation, I realized the answer to that question was that I have always felt like I wasn’t good enough and I was afraid that others would judge me as I had judged myself. This, of course, is a simple way of describing a very complex state of fear that infected every memory, every belief, every relationship, and every aspect of my life. Through my years of self exploration I was able to free myself from my depression which eventually lead to the person who is trying to describe himself in this essay.
So, that pretty much explains how I got myself to where I am, but it still doesn’t explain exactly who I am. While my past has brought me to this moment, it is only my past and doesn’t necessarily define me. In fact, to define me by my past experiences would limit me to my past. Just as defining me by a title would limit me to that title. So I’ve made it a point to not define myself as I believe definitions only serve to trap something in a single moment in time, like a picture. There is no life in a definition and I am very much alive. Of course, this sometimes makes it difficult for others to create an understanding of me because our minds automatically want to classify someone according to what we have defined that type of person to be, much in the same way we classify animals of different species. I have noticed that, in Dallas, people tend to classify each other by occupation or relation. For example I do massage therapy so some classify me as a “massage therapist”, which limits me to whatever they’ve defined a “massage therapist” to be.
Who I am is created by the possibilities I place into my future. This means that my present moment, who I am right now, is a possibility I am creating for myself. Who I am is not something that has already been created, because that person no longer exists in reality. That person only exists in pictures and memories. Who am I? I, the person I know myself to be, is the possibility I am creating for being a healer. With each breath I move forward in this possibility which ultimately creates my reality.
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