Life is not without its lessons to humble us in to breaking our identities.

As many know., I have this bright yellow mustard snow jacket from LLBean that I dawn upon myself each day during the winter season. it is my signature jacket. I have had this for close to 15 years. It is who I am, who I become in winter. Every pocket is used to store gloves, scarf, beanie, post its, pens etc etc. It is so well packed, it acts like my second skin. I go nowhere without it. I am one with my jacket if you will. It is my winter identity.

I innocently climbed out of the car and went to reach for my bag in the backseat. A small corner of my left sleeve must have got caught in the lock handle of the door, when suddenly all I heard was “ RIIIPPP”. To my shock and subsequent horror, a gash in my jacket appeared. Feathers came flying out in the wind. I was “bleeding” My second skin was torn. I walked into the office visibly upset leaving a trail of feathers in my wake. I had to stop this. I had felt I had lost my jacket, I had lost ME. It was a frightening experience. My medical assistant at my request taped it up with transparent scotch tape. Surgery at its finest. I gently removed the jacket and inspected the damage post repair. Unsightly. Horrendous. It was a surgical field repair in battle time.

I felt I had been stabbed. My identity ruined. My mood became fowl for the rest of the day, as I even feverishly looked online for a replacement jacket. But I did not want another jacket, I wanted the one I always had. I went home at the end of the day, and asked the wifey if it was even possible to sow it up. Initially the thought was a resounding no, but the attempt was made. Success. She stopped the hemorrhage of feathers. I had an idea, unsightly as it may have been in my head, “ can we put a patch on it?” I had ideas of a “ NASA “ patch from my son, but wifey thought about a “felt” heart patch, which she quickly made, though unsure if it would work she sowed it on. I was relieved. So far it is working.

But this got me thinking. We each have identities that we are attached to. We hold on to them with desperation. Even we evolve and grow into newer identifies we choose to stay rooted to our older versions. We feel with anguish when the older version of ourselves is threatened. Yet the truth is that the the past is the past. We cannot go back to who we once were, and at times we should not even try. Life is about dissolving identities and moving forward and not staying stuck in the past. The torn jacket experience was perhaps what the universe was teaching me of letting go, and moving on. We create a new identity each day, subtly, till in the near or distant future we are a different person. Evidence of this is in our physical appearances, our ideologies, our finances, our family evolution, our vocation or careers, through those we have around us. Everything changes, including us, yet the suffering comes when we want everything in our lives to freeze and not change, yet the irony is that we are the one that is changing and shifting identities.

So now I roam around with a heart patch, ironically the mark of my evolved identity of a “ Holistic heart doc”. A tattoo of sorts on my arm, a different version of who I was. The yellow jacket now boasts a different symbol of who I am, a bridge of the past and the future. I will have to let go and replace this jacket one day. But for now I feel it is different with this addition. A reminder each day to not be attached yet be present with my “heart” space. Gratitude for the jacket to be fixed and more days, weeks of use hopefully towards the end of a busy winter season, and time to find what my next identity will become with a new jacket.

For now I am calmer and at ease with whom I am and becoming. So is my jacket. A new me. An altered bright yellow mustard jacket with a heart patch. I love the symbolism of it. We are one again, with a different skin, something to grow into and adapt. A scar of a trial that I had to endure. An experience of learning to detach of the old and letting go. All journeys of life are roads to the greater understanding of the field of love.

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I love you