I Am Who I Am

This afternoon I was in a suburban grocery store, pushing my cart up and down the aisles, when I was stopped by a little traffic jam in the middle of the aisle featuring baking supplies. I would have turned around and skipped the rest of the aisle, but I actually had to buy flour, and because I was alone, blessedly alone, I felt no need to be in a rush. 

I had been lost in my thoughts, but because I was waiting, I decided to focus in on the scene, see why we were waiting, and at first all I could take in were the other people in my position: a middle-aged woman with a full cart, a man about my age with a toddler in the front of the cart, two teenage girls buying soda and chips. And then I heard a voice instantly identifiable as that of a Very Old Person and saw the woman whose voice it was, and knew she was as old as my own grandmother: ninety at least.

She was with her daughter. They didn't especially look alike, but I knew it was her daughter as soon as I focused in on their conversation and heard the mother, the elderly woman, say in as loud a voice as she could muster, "Linda, I'm sorry, but I am who I am." She didn't sound very sorry, though, more tired and annoyed, and when I looked at her daughter's face, she too looked tired and annoyed, and suddenly I realized that I wasn't the only person who had heard the old woman speak because the mood--the atmosphere--of our little five cart pile-up had subtly shifted.

I caught the eye of the dad with the toddler, and he smiled, and the middle-aged woman backed up, making more space for the mother and daughter to walk by, which they were doing, slowly but surely, after whatever had transpired between them in that brief but telling exchange. And I knew somehow that I was not the only one thinking how familiar, how significant, this comment had been, this passing of the ultimate frustration from parent to child, and how many millions of times it--the precise sentiment--had been uttered or felt by us, by other parents and children, all over the world, from the beginning of time.

And I found myself wondering just why it is that we can never quite accept our parents as they are, why we can never quite stop wanting them to be, to do, to say just what we need them to be, to do, or to say every single time, even if they exceed our expectations most of the time; I found myself wondering how--in what ways, and when--I will not be completely understood or accepted myself.