Me, My Self and I

When I was about 11 years old, my friends and I played a game of hide-and-seek in this clearing in the forest across the highway from our house. The clearing was ideal for a game of hide-and-seek because it had a large boulder jutting out from the centre, where the seeker could climb and count to 100. It was also surrounded by hundreds of trees that could serve as hiding spots for the 10 kids or so who traipsed into the woods, looking for a big enough tree trunk to crouch behind.

So, when it was my turn to hide, I decided I didn’t want the stigma of being found out so quickly in a VERY serious game like hide-and-seek. So, I ran into the waiting woods, pushed limbs and bows aside and went deeper and deeper until I couldn’t hear the laughter and cries of my friends, only the thumping of my rapidly beating heart.

It wasn’t long before I realized I didn’t know which way to go to find that clearing again. So, I waited. And waited. And waited. When I couldn’t wait any longer, I went deeper into the woods, thinking I was turning to head toward the highway, but instead, I walked right into a hole left by an uprooted tree. I fell, scraping my limbs along the way, and was knee-deep in rainwater and mud from the day before’s shower.

I was alone, cold, wet and scared.

It seemed hours before I realized no one was going to find me. I had to get out. And it was up to me to make it out. So, I clawed my way up the hole, digging my nails into the soft moss-covered embankment and heaved my drenched, mud-caked body out of the hole and onto the wet grass.

Panting, I tried to catch my breath, and after a while, I did. I tried to think of where I could be in relation so the clearing. What direction had I come from? And taking a deep breath, tried to retrace my steps.

It had been early afternoon when we had gone to play in the clearing, right after lunch to be exact, and now the sunlight was fading, and with it, the warmth.

I walked and walked, looking for trampled places where I had stepped, until I emerged from the trees and spotted the boulder, vacant and stark. The glow of the sunset was hovering over the place and I sighed with relief.

I got to the highway and walked the short distance home. Along the way, I met up with one of my hide-and-seek comrades, who asked me where I was going.

Distraught, I said I was going home.

She looked at me and asked what had happened. I told her and she replied my friends had thought I had become fed up with the game and had gone home. No one had been looking for me. No one had missed me.

It was then that I realized my life was mine to lose and to be found, someone had to be doing the seeking.

In my early years, I was certain I had no such seeker who cared enough to find me.

How wrong I was.

About My Self

I am guilty of a lot of things, not the least of which is going though life feeling sorry for myself and thinking no one cared enough to be bothered rescuing me from my hardships and pains.

My Self is about that. It delves into how one’s perception of where one is in life and how circumstances don’t create a life but a life is created out of circumstances. It took me many years to realize who I am is a combination of my pains, aches, broken bones, scares and mistakes.

For years, I had no idea who I was. I was a shy, timid daughter, a studious afraid-of-my-own shadow student, a wallflower of a girlfriend who could be walked over and crushed, an acting-out college student trying to find her voice and a young adult who sought, but never found, this magic reason why I was placed on this earth. I had many faces, many tongues, many shields, many barriers, and many masks.

And none of them disclosed the real me.

It wasn’t until I gave my life up to Christ to save and transform that I began to realize who and what I was. I looked back on those broken bones and scares and found a piece of myself that I could no more do without than the love I feel for Rob, Katie or Ian. It was then that I was “recreated” into the person I have always strived to be. I have been reformed, remoulded and remodeled. And along that way, I have seen where God has been in my troubled times, as well as the good.

I am no longer lost. I have finally emerged from the darkened forest in which I have lived for so long, deep in the hole of mud and rising rainwater, to be rescued by a seeker who has searched for me my whole life.

I have been found because I no longer wanted to be hidden.

My Self by Karen Petkau

I lost my self

Forgotten on the road, graveled and pot-holed

Absentmindedly left beside brown grass

With spikes shooting high into the fading light

Broken and shattered, pieces scattered

Not worth picking up

And carrying on my journey home

I hid my self

Behind lies and identities, skewed for eternities

Of who I really am behind this tilted mask

With woven cords holding in place

Now separating and frayed, split-ends displayed

For all the world to see

Like grey hairs on a black head

I carried my self

Over jagged moss-covered rocks, jutting and lost

Gouging at flesh dripping a trail

Breadcrumbs in blackened trees

Longing for someone to find, and hit rewind

So I could decide again

And take another path home

I lifted my self

And found life breathing still, beyond the barriers erected

High above the pain and hate lodged deep

And into the arms of salvation, and recreation of life once neglected

And rejected for not being good enough

A fork in the road now dug deep into steak