“Tiffany, you sure are a character!”
That’s what my Grandfather used to tell me all the time when I was growing up. I was funny. I was silly. I was a character. I’ve always liked to make people laugh, to be the “funny one” but, as I got older, it became a way to hide my true feelings of hurt or pain. It became my mask and I used it to hide the real me. I try not to do that much anymore but, when I’m around my family, they want the “funny one”. If I’m not “on 10” as they say, they immediately think something is wrong with me, that I’m mad or upset about something when, in fact, I’m just trying to chill and be me.
It takes a lot to be you, to be your authentic self, and it’s something I struggle with EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Sometimes I wonder who I really am.
That is the journey I am on. I want to know what it means to be me, not the mother, wife, teacher, minister, or even the writer.
When it all fades away, who is left?
T. M. Wolfork 