When or where do you feel most like yourself?

Of course, I could get into the whole thing of what does it mean to feel like ones self.  I mean, doesn’t this imply that I really know who I am?  And if I feel “like myself”, is that real, or an illusion?  Does feeling like myself mean my comfort zone?  If so, I guess I feel most like myself when I’m at home with my hubby and kitties and quite frankly, lounging on the couch with a glass of wine.  I also feel “like myself” at work when I’m working with a faculty member to teach them how to do something, whether it is an instructional design issue with an online course component, or actually teaching them how and why to use different pieces of technology for teaching.  The point is, I feel like “myself” when I am in teacher mode.

So, again, here is another hard question for me.  I feel most like myself in specific contexts, and not necessarily physical ones.  I feel like myself when I am alone, and reading a book.  When I am with others having a social dinner and laughing.  When I am at work and doing the thing I love to do, which is teaching.  When I am running.  When I am doing yoga on my own terms.  When I am doing something I don’t know how to do, but am not being judged, but am figuring it out on my own.   When I am in front of my computer editing my pictures or trying to write.  When I am at home with my hubby and kitties watching one of our favourite shows on TV and having supper together.  Doing the things I love to do with the people I love to be with.  That’s when I feel that I am myself.

And, so, because I don’t feel that any of my blog posts is complete without a picture, here are a couple of pictures that make me feel like myself:

(June 2013) I did this – well, Kevin did the bricks in front, but I did the landscaping (it was not pretty before, and does still need work which will happen this year).  And here is the backyard after a start of fixing last fall (it was, and still is, much worse than the front yard was!) – still a work in progress, much like many other things around the house!