Reinvention
is my birthright. It's a social trait that is distinctly mine.
The freedom to choose who I am, who I want to be and will be, is an
exclusive gift that I was born with. It's not a family quality, but a
national characteristic. My American heritage empowers me to push the
chair back and walk away from the table anytime I see fit. Moreover, it's
not just something that my liberty affords me. No, it's a genetic
attribute that lives in every free born American. Its' realization is
purely a result of whether we choose to exercise that which makes us
unique.
I didn't come to this conclusion
until recently. I would have assumed that something so obvious would have
reached out and slapped me in the face as soon as it became necessary to
seek it out. I stood on that doorstep long ago but rapping on the timber
never occurred to me as the obvious action. No, like all that I do, this
has been more of a slow, rolling boil...a revolution that's been years in the
making and will take decades to conclude. My life changed so drastically
in 2007 that I didn't pause to examine the peculiarity of my reasons.
At the time I just knew that it had to be. It wasn't until after I
was set adrift that I sought meaning, but by then it could only be seen by
looking back into the wake. This is my way...I "do" then
apologize later, or "don't" and obsess over what I always believe is
a missed opportunity. This has been a pattern onto which I've sewn my
buttons for as far back as I can recall. But the desire, no...the
necessity to reinvent is new I believe. Or wait, is it?
When I was a little boy I was
"Jimmy" because that's just what I was always called. But at
some point I wanted to be "James". I asked people in my life to
refer to me by my "new" name and thus think of me as some
"new" person. And then when I was in my late teens I wanted to
be "Jim." And so over time, as is somewhat commonly done by
people, I actually changed my name. But in doing so I desired more than
vanity...I wanted to change who I was. Then I moved away from my home and
started a new life. I got into the most contradictory career field I
could find because again, I wanted to be someone else. Then, like a
plotted story, the middle act of my life began. I got divorced and I
found a new woman who would have given me exactly the same seemingly happy life
I carried on for years. But I wasn't satisfied with that and walked away,
even though I loved her. My soul's need to reinvent trumped my heart's
need for familiar solace. And so finally, the revolution began and I put
down the history book and went in search of my place in it. And for a
time I believed I didn't ever want to come back. But after all these
years I think I finally understand. I never left.
Like a prisoner emerging from the
black confusion of solitary and squinting into the suns certain clarity...there
is a harsh realization that these four walls haven't vanished, they've merely
expanded. I finally recognize myself there in the shimmering,
refracting luminescence of my life. I see in the reflection
that I won't ever actually be someone else. I always have been, and will
forever remain, a prism...simply gathering the light of my life and scattering
the colors to suit.
I accept this creature of change
as long as I can always reinvent how I am a slave to it.
-Jim Franks
