Who am I?

I thought that we are born a clean slate. That we start life with no thoughts, no feelings, no sins, no history, no ideas or images of who we are, or who we are supposed to be. But that’s not true. We are born carrying the thoughts, feelings, sins, history and ideas of those before us. We just don’t remember. And then we go through life trying to forget, while collecting new experiences to replace the ones we never had, yet carry within us.

When I look in the mirror, the first thing I see is my forehead, the one my grandmother gave me. The one that gathers all my thoughts, my worries and my disbelief and stores them in the shelves my skin creates. And then I see all the stories I’ve heard and all those I’ve told, hiding in the folds around my eyes. I like that they are there; that my face registers the things I’m going through. I like that even though my mind forgets, my body never does. I like to know that if I want, I can find there everything that ever made me laugh, and all the things that made me cry. But when I look in the mirror and I see the valleys on my forehead and the creases around my eyes, I want them gone. Because someone, somewhere, and at some point, decided that they are ugly.

And my eyes. Oh, my eyes are not mine. They are my mother’s. They might not look the same from the outside, but they look the same at everything they see. And they see everything. The things that are there, and those that are yet to come. They see the arm extending to hand the flowers, and the foot twisting to sprint. They see the gaze turning away, and the chest pushing forward. They see the boy, and then they see the man. And somehow, they also seem to have this power of seeing through, which makes people uncomfortable and makes me look away, even though I want to keep looking. But when you use somebody else’s eyes, you don’t really have a choice.

I probably got my shoulders from my father. They needed to be broad, so they could carry all the things I’ve been collecting. The first thing I put there and never took away was everyone else’s expectations. I carried this one around like some kind of prize I won at a contest I never participated in. I never told anyone about it, what if they wanted to take it away? Then other things came. People gave me gifts, ideas and pains, and I put them all there. I went places and I never left without bringing something with me. Sometimes I’d take only something small, like a word, or a way of looking at the trees. Some other times I’d make sure to take something that was going to last, like the way someone smiles when they see you, even if they don’t know you. Or a tattoo that would remind me that I was once young and made mistakes.  

I was never a clean slate. There were always on me the marks my mother left when she carried me, the ones my father left when he talked to me, and all the other marks my ancestors left as a way of reminding me of who I am. And who am I, if not a collection of all the things, people and places I’ve experienced, in this or any other life, and all the things, people and places I’m yet to experience, as long as my soul is wandering this world?