Me and My Shadow
(rediscovering the little girl I left behind)

I can remember playing with my shadow when I was a little girl. She was an imaginary playmate who followed me wherever I went in perfect unison with my every move. Sometimes she would run ahead of me, growing larger, then smaller...and sometimes totally disappearing in a game of hide and seek, only to pop up behind me. She was always close by. I remember how she would dance on the walls in my dimly lit bedroom as I shaped my hands into all kinds of animals...a bunny, a barking dog, a galloping horse. I loved my shadow. She was my most loyal friend. She was my identical twin, a perfect reflection of all that I was ... playful, carefree, uninhibited and real.

As we continue to grow up, the essence of that child becomes the voice of our inner child, the best friend we talk to when relating to the world's demands on us. Sometimes, we look back and wonder where she went. On what day did I begin to change in a never-ending series of choices to become another person...the "Good Girl", the "Devoted Wife", the "Great Mom", the "Sweet Lady"...my parents' "Pride and Joy"?

We grow up being told that we need to be protected, to feel secure, and kept safe. We yearn to belong to someone, to be fearlessly rescued, to be desired, adored ...and, yes, loved.

Over time, many of us will portion more and more of who we really are into the safe confines of our Shadow. We do it in order to attain those gifts promised to only the "Best Little Girls". Think about it. How often do you talk with your Shadow about what you really want to do...those things that are not acceptable to tell anyone else?

Do you sneak spoonfuls of chocolate ice cream straight from the container when no one is looking and carefully wipe your mouth clean so no one will see the evidence? Do you fart LOUDLY (or do you "pass wind" as Mom would say) and laugh at how bad it smells when you think no one will hear (or smell) it? Are these times you share with your Shadow, like I do with mine?

On a deeper level, how often, when you are doing the things everyone expects of you (you know...the things that you claim to take joy in doing), do you find yourself confessing to your Shadow "This really isn't what I want to be doing, but please don't tell them or they'll be disappointed in me."?

I've been talking more and more with my Shadow lately. She calls to me to come out to play, to be the wild child I once was... dirty-faced and skinned knees, hair flying in the breeze, arms outstretched, reaching for the sky, singing at the top of my lungs as I skip down the street.

Lately, it seems more important to be "real", than to pretend the Shadow isn't me.