I was having a discussion with some friends a while ago and someone asked this question:

If you could be anyone, who would you be?

Angelina Jolie popped into my head because, come on, those lips are really amazing. But the last time I counted those lips came with about 8 kids. No thank you. If I could sing like Aretha Franklin I would never speak again. I admire the hell out of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, not just because she is brilliant and funny but because she can put up with Justice Scalia. Ixnay on Courtney Kardashian. Double ixnay on any of Hefner’s Girls Next Door. Christian Amanpour is pretty cool. Definitely not Ann Coulter.

Can I be a hybrid?

Actually there is a correct answer to this question and it finally came to me after my hybrid request was denied. Me. I just want to be me. Seriously. I finally, unequivocally want to be me. Even with the six pounds I gained in the last year and the gray(ing) hair and gravity impaired body parts, I want to be me.

Do you have any idea how amazing this is? After a lifetime of substance abuse, depression and self-loathing, I finally want to be me – all the time. I still have a slew of character defects – like, I want to shout from the mountain top the real age of someone who shaved a few years off a birth date on Facebook. But I won’t because I am not that kind of woman anymore.

When I was depressed I wanted to be anyone but me. When I was hung-over I wanted to be anything but me. Sometimes, when I was depressed AND hung-over I did not want to be at all. I wanted it to be over, once and for all. I just wanted to check out, permanently. A couple of times – when I was in high school and again in college – I even tried suicide. For years I awoke in the middle of the night to a tape playing over and over in my head, “Oh, didn’t you hear? She killed herself. She took a gun…”

These days I rarely hear that tape. When I do every fiber in my psyche screams “NOOOOOOO!” Not only do I want to live, I want to be me – with my extra six pounds, gray(ing) hair and gravity-impaired body parts. I am not at a place where I can say I love myself – not yet. But I do kind of like myself. It’s progress, not perfection, right?

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (October 20, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 20 Oct 2009