Who Are You and What Are Your Identities? Mine Are Shared In This Honest Post About My Life
As I drove home from the Lewis Center Women's Freedom meeting the other day, I listened to a podcast "The Truth About Identity" from Joyce Meyer's Talk It Out series. The topic made me think about who I am and the identities that I've had over the years.
Child of God: I was actively involved in our local church through the pandemic. However, I my relationship with God was truly enriched by what I learned in AA. I study scripture regularly and when someone asks for prayer, I pray for them. While I was doing all the things our parish expected me to do, I was stressed out and overwhelmed by trying to do everything that was expected. When the pandemic happened, I really had time to reflect on what was important and made changes. My relationship with God is better than it ever was as I'm spending time in His Word rather than stressing out doing everything except studying His Word.
Daughter: While my parents are deceased, I am still their daughter. I think of my parents often and I my sense of humor came from both of them. I learned a lot from them and I miss them.
Employee: I walked into my job at The Ohio State University almost 30 years ago the day after I earned my Bachelor's degree in Computer Information Systems and Spanish from Heidelberg College (now University). Jon and I relocated to Columbus away from friends and family. We planned a wedding in an unfamiliar town and went through some lean times after we got married. The pandemic led to nearly two years of working remotely before we were instructed to return to the office two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have struggled with the return to in office work but I am working to overcome driving jitters and stressing over how to maintain my Crossfit schedule and keep up with my chores. I am eager to retire but that time is not now. I worked my way through the ranks starting in tech support, creating and managing a network operations center for 10 years, moving into a project management role, surviving the project management group being disbanded, and now serving in my role as an individual contributor which I describe as being "a jack of all trades and master of none."
Wife: My husband Jon & I married in June 1996 and are approaching 29 years of marriage as I write this. We have survived good times and bad times. Jon has put up with me longer than I think anyone hoped or expected.
Mother: Jon and I had our son Jon III in May 2003. While my husband attended our our small business and competed in shooting competitions, I took care of J3 on the weekends or during extended trips. I'm very proud of the young man that Jon III has become. While he doesn't need me like he did when he was little, I still love and care for him very much.
Alcoholic: I struggled when my husband and son became active in scouts. I tried to prevent being lonely by enrolling in self-paced degree program but that did not prevent me from falling into active alcoholism. My physical and mental health struggled until I finally gave up fighting and sought help.
Recovering Alcoholic: My sobriety date is January 15, 2015. A few days before this, I admitted to my primary care doctor at that time that I had a drinking problem. She printed off sheets of treatment centers. My last drunk was a day that I attended a women's retreat at church. I had a couple glasses of wine before the retreat to calm my nerves as I was not comfortable around women at that time. I finished the bottle of wine after the retreat and declared I would not drink again. I was assessed by a treatment center who did not take my insurance and wished me good luck. Thankfully, I found AA and wonderful people who didn't shoo me out the door to fend for myself. I have learned so much during my sobriety and continue to remain teachable.
Athlete: After I got sober, I decided to get healthier. I watched some YouTube videos about Crossfit as I was interested. However, I joined a walking club that met on Saturday mornings. It was a wonderful group of people and I walked two half marathons and numerous other races with walking club members. While training for my half marathons, I attended a community workout at a local gym. I liked it but it didn't align well with my marathon training. I did strength training at home in addition to the walking. I was in better shape than I had been in my late 20s and 30s. The pandemic hit and like a lot of people, I ate too much comfort food. I never forgot about that community workout and several friends were involved with that gym and I would see their posts about Crossfit. Our son J3 graduated from high school in May 2021 and I started Crossfit in June 2021. As I write this, I've been doing Crossfit for almost 4 years. I have learned so much from the coaches and other athletes at Steadfast/Crossfit Plain City. I have also made some great friends. If you are looking for a gym and you live in Plain City or nearby, I encourage you to check out Steadfast; I've linked to their webpage under resources.
Blogger: In October 2024, I started this blog, Santini Serenity. I admit, I started it on a whim as I'd read that bloggers could make "easy money." I won't deny there are content creators out there making money, I found that making money was not important to me as my blog evolved. After floundering around a bit, I decided that I wanted to share scripture related content. Whether I'm inspired by a specific scripture or I come across a topic and I seek out scripture, I do my best to tie them together. Blogging has helped me learn more of God's word as I write blog posts. After I got my footing, I set an aggressive schedule of publishing six blog posts a week with Sundays being the only day I did not publish a new blog post. Between a busy period at work and the holidays, I have prayed about scaling back the number of posts I publish a week. I want to publish quality posts and not something thrown together to meet an self-imposed deadline.
I want to thank all of my family and friends who have walked with me and supported me during my 51, almost 52 years on this Earth. I look forward to many more years with all of you.
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