Who Is I?

Who is the "I"  in the singular first-person pronoun?  What aspects of any person make up one's true self?

It's obvious when we look at younger pictures of ourselves that the "I" changes chronologically.  I can say "I was three in that picture" but that "I" looks little like the current self.  The former self is fresh-faced, adorable, and doesn't know half of what I know now.  But it's also true that in any one moment, I am many selves.  In the time it takes to scratch an itch, a relatively sane person can seemingly morph into someone else--still sane, but different.

For the past few months, I've been on a most peculiar trip, without even leaving home.  A series of medical bumps in the road, along with a few detours and potholes along the way, has given me a chance to see what it feels like to be This Me--not the Me I like better and like to think is the "real" me.  The  Nicer and Easier-Going Me is a little moody, for sure, but not all-cap MOODY like I've been for these few months.

It shouldn't come as a surprise when our friends still like us when we're in a period of blue, but this trip has given me a reassuring reminders that they don't go away when out pops a surrogate self.  Even when I cocoon myself, the presence and generosity of friends give me surges of hope that this will soon pass.

"I'm losing my mind," I said to Pam when I related my difficulty in remembering the name of Colin Firth as I was watching him play Max Perkins in Genius--to which she replied, "No, you're not!  I'll let you know when you do."

For 32 years, after a surgical removal of the biological parts that made my own estrogen, I've taken a little tiny white pill almost every day.  When I gave up bottled estrogen in March,  and my thinking grew fuzzy, my moods blue, and my sleep erratic, I began to wonder: Who is this person camping out in my body?  Who is this person who forgets to send birthday cards and who can escalate from zero to ten on the irritability scale in a snap?  Who is this person who has to wait an hour for the name of one of my favorite actors to show up on my memory screen?

A friend related a time when she felt this way.  "I just don't feel like myself lately," she told her best friend--to which the eavesdropping little daughter of her friend said, "Then who are you?"

Isn't that the question of a lifetime for us all? Who is the "I" who speaks for all the selves residing in the Russian nesting doll's outer self?  Who is the "I" who says "I" saw this movie, or "I" want ice cream or "I" remember....?