As the violin plays some wonderful music, I sit in the Puerto Vallarta airport and listen, pondering some thoughts that have begun to creep into my mind, as a scorpion might creep into a small crevice to escape the heat. Even my thoughts have a life of their own, thus in order to escape from them I have to write them out, letting them find their own place in this world. Over the last many months of traveling, I have changed. I have grown into a person I like. No longer needed are the drugs, the alcohol, the meaningless sex, or the desire cease this life. It seems that traveling and learning how other people lived, learning that I could do things I didn’t think I could do have helped me come into my own. Even my words have changed, as noticed when communicating with my best friend. I’m comfortable just being now and have no desire to be something other than I am.
I’ve heard it said many times that in order to love yourself that you have to really know yourself. How does one get to know oneself when one cannot face the very self that exists? To accept the best and worst that one might be capable of doing or being is very important. I know who I am. I know that I am capable of great wrongs, even to the point of stealing, lying, and much worse; however, I’m also capable of great love, to the point that I can sacrifice my own desires to allow my love to show through for another person without loosing myself. I know I’m not educated as some, but more than others. I know I’m talented beyond most in ways that have been proven in my life. I can take something from nothing and turn it into something wonderful. I can make something out of nothing, such as all four of the businesses I have created. I can command respect and appreciation, but I can also create great disgust and admonition from others. I know my psychological triggers that cause my worst reactions to things and words. I know I possess great anger, but also great peace.
This is who I am, the person I have grown to accept and love. I’m the man with two names (Sebastian St.Troy and Jimmy Lynn Boney), with two families (the chosen one and the one I was born to), and the man who lives comfortable on a small government dividend each month. I no longer seek to run away from my past, rather now embracing it. As my past has made me who I am, it’s part of my being, my existence. I am my mother’s son, very much like her in many aspects, being, I suppose, the best part of my mother. I am my father’s son, even though not recognized as such for many years. I am the brother to my sister and brother. I am the friend to such as might be my friends.
As I contemplate where these acknowledgements might lead, I’m caught in a great web, the great web of life that connects everyone and everything. I am part of nothing, but connected to everything. I am nothing, but everything. Coming into my own peace of knowing who I am lends itself to a growth which is seen by others, as acknowledged by a graceful women last night at Garbo’s, where my best friend and I enjoyed cocktails and conversation. She told my best friend that, “he was likeable from the very first moment she saw me.” Perhaps it is the new way I carry myself, the new way of being secure in myself, or is it that because now I respect myself, others are respecting.
As my best friend says, “you never know a stranger..” This might be, however, those strangers are never met because something my mother taught me when I was very young. As I was boarding a plane, alone and without friends, she said, “they are only strangers if you allow them to be.” Thus, I’m the one, as everyone knows, who will easily and gracefully begin a conversation with someone. There are many things my mother taught me that I wish she could see how they have changed my life and how those lessons have brought me into the man that I am. Perhaps I’ve caused too much pain in that great ladies heart to allow her to forgive and begin a new conversation, but I still hope.
Yes, I’ve changed. I’ve grown. Now the future lies ahead of me in a way I never dreamed possible. It’s a future of hope, something long lost, but now regained. A calming assurance of knowing who I am has taken over where only self-doubt dwelt. Now the future is mine for the making, the molding, as I desire. Where will it all lead? Who knows but now I go gracefully, calmly, and securely into it to find out.
