Today I Am...

Do you ever, when you have a free minute to breathe and relax and escape from the craziness you're convinced surrounds you, sit and think about who you are and who you were and how they were always one in the same person, yet a little different, too? Do you ever fall silent and let memories come and go as they please? Have you ever wondered, "JESUS FUCKING H! Am I stoned or what?" Heh. Me, too.

Anyway, I'm sitting here in my sensible off-white ribbed turtleneck, corduroy brown jacket, and noticeably non-ripped, non-frayed at the bottom jeans in the house I share with my wondermous husband and four crazy ass animals, and kind of giggling to myself about the many incarnations of Zube that landed me here, in this chair, surrounded by all these four-legged nutcases, today. I feel really grounded and really, um, conscious of myself right now. In a good way.

Lots of times I feel fractured from the past Zubes. I try to assimilate and accept them, but it usually takes effort. Today, or at least this minute, I am me and all the me's I've been before wrapped into one. And it's easy.

Today I am...

...The girl who wore ice blue lipstick and rainbow kiddy barrettes and combat boots in her early twenties.

...The sister who, after leaving a party with her brother at 2:00AM and discovering that a house fire had spread to an entire block of her town, rushed home, woke up her Mom, and the three of them frantically brewed coffee, gathered snacks, and packed it all in the car and headed over to the Red Cross, only to be told, "We've got everything under control. Go home." Non-plussed, they drove around the perimeter of the area and offered the snacks and coffee and juice drinks to the firemen and women, whom exlaimed, "Thank you SO much! The Red Cross hasn't been able to get to us in over an hour."

...The student who sat on the stoop outside her dorm and smoked cigarettes like a fiend hoping that her panic attack would pass because she only had an hour before her first student teaching class and wanted to make a good impression.

...The adult who always has and always will speed up and aim center when driving towards a puddle, laughing hysterically.

...The teenager who cried on her Senior trip while going through the haunted house at Disney World because her supposed friends were making fun of her again. Though she was very relieved to be on a really dark ride so that no one would see her crying.

...The daughter whose father finally pulled her aside and said, "It's okay to look me in the eye. I love you even when you make mistakes and I don't want you to feel like you're walking on eggshells all the time. People screw up," after she'd finally confessed to having gotten a DUI.

...The ex-girlfriend who stuck maxi pads all over her ex-boyfriend's car because he told her he'd rather do cocaine than hang out with her.

...The employee who worked as an aide to a Democratic politician during the Monica Lewinsky debacle.

..The girl who got VERY annoyed when people asked her, "So, what do you REALLY do for that politician, anyway?"

Today I am me. Who are you today?