Who Gets to Tell Me Who I Am?

Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of emotional mirroring or reflectionMost of my family was too busy to engageThe sister closest in age, however, had lots of time on her handsWhich she used to tell me how much she hated meThat everyone didThat anyone who pretended to like me, was indeed just pretendingNot just most daysEvery dayConsequently, I felt the need to get a second opinionAnd, not finding a willing mirror in my own houseI used to go knock on doors in my neighborhoodPlenty of people didn’t open the doorAnd in retrospect, I can’t blame them“Hi. I’m 7. I’m just looking for someone to talk to.”There was one old lady who would answer almost every time I knockedShe got loose tobacco from a Native American farm in VirginiaWe would talk while I watched her roll her cigarettesAnother house would answer the door when their grandchild was overAnd I was happy to entertain the toddler for an hour or twoMost people were just confusedAnd eventually, I got the hintBut I carried the desire for a reliable witness throughout my developmentI would ask teachers and counselors for an honest assessment of meStrengths and weaknessesAnd usually they would tell me how smart and resourceful I wasBut that I could be more patientThat wasn’t what I wanted to hearI wanted to hear something that could reconcile my sense of selfWith my sister’s constant assessment of meBut I also knew that my sister’s take was skewedAnd that I was too close to understand my own blind spotsAnd so, I kept askingNow, we live in a polite societyPeople generally are not equipped to give constructive psychological evaluationsMost told me what they thought I wanted to hearUntil Lou SchultzLou was the president of the company I worked forAnd the husband of my dearest friendHe was successful, succinct, and no-b******tSo, one day, at about 30 years oldI decided Lou was the perfect person to askAnd he did not disappointHe wasn’t going to fluff my pillowI’d asked him a question and I was getting my answerHe started with things he liked about meAnd then he dug into where he thought I was an idiotOne example: “You’re political without being politically astute”I asked for clarificationHe recalled a business dinner I’d relayed to him previouslyI’d done a negative POV paper about a companyThe president of which was a former roommate of the president of GMI’d recommended GM not engageOf course they engagedThey were always going to engage, and I should’ve known thatAnd I certainly shouldn’t have confessed to being the author of the paper at the dinnerYeah.There were other things he offeredAll of them valid from his lensAnd, after all those years of askingI finally had an unflinching assessment of who I was as a personFrom someone I knew and respectedAnd, I won’t lie: I was crushedI spent several days in a funk. Wouldn’t leave my house. Had to process.I’d asked for itI’d gotten itAnd now I had to deal with itImagine my surprise, then, when several days later a very high-ranking executive called meOne of the people at that business dinner Lou said I’d flubbed“I want to offer you a job,” he said“Your honesty is refreshing, and your lack of posturing is unique”A fog liftedI didn’t take the jobBut I got something much betterI finally saw I was mistaking frames for mirrorsEcholocation doesn’t tell a bat who she isIt just tells her where she isI’ll always love Lou for being the first person to be truly candid with meAnd the lastBecause I never had to ask that question againP.S. I no longer ask strangers who I am. I do still enjoy talking to them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com