I feel like I’m lying sometimes. I feel somewhat two-faced. Or maybe a more appropriate way to capture it is that I feel like I’m living a double life. I’m living two different lives and I’m not sure which one is the real one, which one is the real Ryan. Who am I?

Healthy Ryan

Healthy Ryan does the dishes first thing in the morning while he’s making his family breakfast. Healthy Ryan goes on dates with his wife (ok, not as often as he should or would like to). Healthy Ryan goes to the neighborhood coffee shop and talks to people. Healthy Ryan is initiating a new movement in downtown Vancouver called the Grassroots Conspiracy. Healthy Ryan likes to read and learn. Healthy Ryan likes to hang out with people, have people over in the evening, and play legos with his son. Healthy Ryan reads books to his kids before bedtime. Healthy Ryan laughs at his wife’s jokes a lot (’cause she’s pretty funny). Healthy Ryan likes to laugh. Healthy Ryan is involved in his neighborhood, he’s an active participant in the life of the neighborhood. Healthy Ryan has negative atributes too (some pretty bad ones too) but if you compare him to sick Ryan he looks real good.

Sick Ryan

Sick Ryan is pretty boring. Sick Ryan just lays around doing nothing. He may watch movies, a few episodes of Law and Order, but sick Ryan doesn’t really read or learn anything. Sick Ryan sleeps a lot. He goes to bed early and takes naps throughout the day. Sick Ryan doesn’t really leave the house nor does he have people over. He’s kind of antisocial and reclusive. Sick Ryan isn’t involved in much ’cause he’s usually too sick to do anything. Sick Ryan doesn’t help much with parenting nor does he do much to care for his wife. Sick Ryan just sucks energy from those around him.

Which Am I?

Am I sick Ryan or am I healthy Ryan? I know (duh) that I’m both. I know that. I realize that. Clearly. BUT there is such an strong dichotomy between the two Ryan’s that at times it becomes hard to reconcile. They are absolute oposites and they can swing from one to the other in a moments notice. I never know who I will be from day to day, I can never plan a week ahead, I can never count on which Ryan will apear. My kids don’t know if they’re getting sick daddy or healthy daddy, my wife doesn’t know if she’s getting the present or the absent husband, I don’t know if I can spend time with people or must hide out. I’m dying to know which more defines me! I’m dying to know which one I am more of, which one will dominate my existence! Who am I?

Who Are You?

I can only write from my own experience, but I know that this is true of you too. It may not always be as clear and obvious as it is in my life but you know that at times most of us struggle with deciding which person we are. Are you the dude that’s the life of the party or the guy that secretly questions whether he belongs? Are you the lady who everyone things is gorgeous or the one who questions whether she stacks up to others? Are you the guy who passionately loves his wife or the guy who secretly finds his passions fulfilled in pornography? Are you the spiritual contemplative person or the person that can’t exist without the noise of a radio or tv? We’ve got our varied identities that create two us’s–two people that shouldn’t exist in unity…and yet here we find ourselves. We exist and we drive me crazy.

The Best Option…

Maybe our best option is to give up. Maybe our best option is to throw our hands up in the air and resolutely declare: This is me, I am us, I might make no sense to myself but I am me. Sick Ryan and Healthy Ryan don’t mesh very well but they’re both Ryan. Sick Ryan kind of sucks…but he is a part of me. As I seek to understand what integration of my multiple selves looks like my life moving forward my hope is not just for Sick Ryan to go away (while I do hope for this my hope cannot be solely in it) but for Healthy Ryan and Sick Ryan to learn from each other and believe that both are of value. The problem is that I get caught up in the economy of it all: Sick Ryan doesn’t seem to have anything to offer while Healthy Ryan has much to give. Worth, therefore, is found not in identity but in commerce (what a crock!). Worth (I want to believe) is found in who I am (healthy or sick) and in who I am loved by (by God for certain by humanity I hope). As I learn to live into this reality (that my identity is found not in what I offer the world but in who I am created to be) I believe that the integration of my two worlds will become a more safe venture. How ’bout you?