Listen to this on the Wild Creation Stories Podcast here:

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There once was a woman who got sick and tired of being herself.

She dreamed of climbing a mountain, but she wasn’t strong. She wanted to paint a beautiful portrait, but she wasn’t artistic. She wanted to try stand up comedy, but she wasn’t funny.

“That just wouldn’t be ME,” she said, dismissing each of the things she wanted to do.

Being herself was like a disease that got worse and worse. Soon, she couldn’t do anything new or different because it was “not me.”

Then one day, the woman had a surprising thought.

“What if don’t have to be ‘me’ all the time?”

The woman was consumed with the question. She thought about it for days.

She could imagine being someone else, even though she never had been. What if that was all it took?

After a month of furiously pondering this question, she collapsed in a heap, certain she would never figure it out. She just wasn’t smart enough.

She sat and breathed.

She felt the air on her skin, the blood pumping through her body, her weight on the ground. It seemed to her that there was something deep inside her that was “not me” already; it was her and not her at the same time.

“What if I could take off my self like a suit of clothes?”

It was the most exciting and scary thought she’d ever had. If she could take off her self, she could be anyone! And if she could be “not me,” there was nothing she couldn’t do.

But what if she took off her “me” suit and there was nothing underneath? Who was she if she wasn’t herself?

What if she took off her “me” and she was naked and pink and vulnerable inside like a baby bird? The world would eat her up!

She became obsessed with the thought. Sometimes it was all she could think about. Other times, she did everything in her power not to think it, which did exactly the opposite.

After another month of worrying about all that might happen if she shed herself of me, she was ready.

She sat down, closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply and slowly until she could feel the Not-Me-That-Is-Also-Me deep inside. She could feel the me suit she was wearing over it.

The woman lifted her arms, found a zipper, and pulled.

Her self slipped to the floor like a worn out suit and she stepped out of it.

Inside was a golden ball of light flecked with every color of the rainbow, every “me” she’d ever been, all the “not me’s” she could imagine, and even some she couldn’t.

It occurred to the woman that if she had put on one me suit, she could put on another. So she began to try on every “me” she could find: Fearless Me, Sexy Me, Hysterical Me, Reckless Me.

Each suit let her do things she’d never been able to do before.

She climbed the mountain. She painted a portrait. She did a stand up comedy show, and even got a few chuckles.

Whenever she wanted to do something that was “not me,” the woman found the right me suit and stepped into it.

It was so fun being different me’s that the woman created quite a collection. She became obsessed with finding just the right suit. She went on quests that led her to the jungles of Africa, the hills of Scotland, the frozen tundra of the Arctic.

She switched me suits so many times that she didn’t know who she was anymore, which was what she wanted, but it was also tiring. She was constantly asking herself, “Who am I today?” and searching for just the right suit, discarding this one and that one that didn’t fit.

Finally, she’d had enough.

“I’m not wearing any me suit today,” she said. “I’ll be naked.”

It felt different to not have a me suit on. It felt like liquid light, as if she might disappear into the walls.

It was hard to do things without a me suit. In fact, she didn’t much want to do anything at all, and that was okay. She liked just being…whatever it is that she was, which she found impossible to define.

Gradually, the woman stopped needing to do anything at all. She stayed where she was and let the experiences move through her.

She found everything she’d been wanting to be and some things she never even knew existed. Slowly, over the eons, she let go of everything she’d been holding onto and the memories of all those me suits.

She faded into the current of golden light that carried her to the farthest corners of the universe, without moving.

And she was everything.