Living like Alice Munro writes or I am who I am Now

I found out I was a 'loud talker' in a western hat shop surrounded by quite a few hunky cowboys.  Not exactly how my imagination had things progressing at that moment, but then again, I chose to wander into the store with my husband and 7-year old daughter.  Daydreams about hunky cowboys in that situation is just wrong...and I paid for it.  At least a few of them had the courtesy not to laugh...too loud anyway.

Not that I believe I'm a 'loud talker'--and a poll of selective friends confirmed that I am not--but I was startled to find out that both husband and daughter believe me to be one.  Personally, I am blaming it on the stuffed ears I had left over after my recent bout with double pneumonia.

Anyway, this brings me in a round-a-bout way to the discussion my husband and I have been having over the past 9 months or so.   The basis of these talks is that after 16 years neither of us are the same people we fell in love with and married--instances of illness, addiction and depression combined with the joyous aspects of life like children, friends, family, as well as the normal growth we all experience have re-shaped each of us.  He's no longer just the calm, solid and thoughtful thinker and I am no longer just the energetic do-er buzzing from idea to crises to 'must get done'.  We each have work to do to be comfortable in our own singular skins, as well as in our combined skins of being a couple, lovers, parents and more.

But like a snake shedding it's skin, the changing of who we are is rarely smooth--there are wiggles, pushing, scratching and more, all interspersed with long moments of quiet repose or resting.  I think people understand the action of the changing, even people looking in from the outside.  But it's those moments of quiet or resting that are difficult for everyone...all of those involved in the change and those just viewing it.  Personally I find these moments, days, months of quiet tend to invite questions I'm unable or unwilling to answer--because mostly I feel I am resting in order to keep moving forward...the changing isn't done yet.

A friend mentioned recently that she's noticed some changes, but it was hard for her to reconcile those changes with who she knew me to be.   When she got done explaining it, I felt a bit like that painting that George and Nick discuss in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"....a quietly noisy relaxed intensity.  After being battered with that description, the same friend said she is eager to see how I come out the other side...so am I, I told her.  So am I. 

It's after discussions like the one with friend that I find myself turning to stories by a fantastic Canadian writer, Alice Munro. She graces her work with characters struggling to live between the lives they have made and the dreams that still pull them.  Like onions, her characters are peeeled, each layer showing a new depth and complexity, which always gives me hope.  But what I like best of all is that it is never linear for her...because life isn't like that...there is meandering, wandering, pauses and jump-starts.  My favorite book, and the one that I'm currently re-reading is Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.  It is good at reminding me to just be...too much resting on 'shoulda, woulda, coulda' often ends painfully.

In the end I come away comfortable in the 'in-between'....the time of who I am now, which is between who I was and who I will be, whenever that happens. 

And if who I am now is a loud talker, well then that's who I'll be for a bit.   I have no doubt I'll be something different down the road.