Who are you?

"Are the real you and the visible you consistent?"

Well, are they?

That's one of the questions Mandi will ask me when we meet.  (I'll ask her, too!)

When we first started meeting, I would always say "Yes, of course" in response to this question.  I wasn't purposely hiding anything from anyone, and I don't think I put on a front.  Over the past little while, though, I've been thinking differently about it.

No, I don't put on a front, and I don't purposely hide anything.  But at my job, the visible me is not the real me.  At work, I'm not very visible.  I don't have much of a relationship with my co-workers, and a I don't spend much time outside of my classroom.  My kids know who I am, but the teacher next door? I doubt it.

So, really, the real me is not being visible.  I am not presenting myself as I really am.  Not being a people person, and working somewhere where I really have to be intentional about talking to people, it doesn't come easy.

I've made some steps (baby steps) towards remedying that, and I think that eventually I will be able to say, again, that yes, of course the real me and the visible me are consistent.  But I'm not there yet.  Good thing Mandi will keep asking me!