Who are you????

For the last several weeks I've had this nagging question in the back of my mind.  Who am I?  (Maybe this is at the root of why I'm reading all these unschooling books.)

If I'm going to be any kind of a decent mother, homeschooling or not, don't I need to know who I am?

When I lived back home, who I was was already established. 

Foster kid.  Poster child for surviving a terrible childhood.  
and then later,
Hippie girl.  Different.  

When we moved away from home, I really had to figure out who I was away from those labels.....those boxes.  

Lover of God.  Wife.  Mother.  Homeschooler.

I dove head first into homeschooling out of necessity and interest.  But I think I got caught up in doing it right.  I'm realizing just about now that my ideas about right were by someone else's standards.  I don't want to name any specifics because really the ideas and methodology are not to blame.  They just aren't the right fit for me. 

I don't think this is uncommon for new homeschoolers.  And maybe it's a good thing.  Maybe trying on the wrong hat leads us one step closer to finding the right one.  That's the crucial part.  

Realizing that if something doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you (or the thing that's not working, per se).  Maybe the answer is that you're not being true to yourself.

Trying to be someone else, or what someone else thinks you should be, is never going to get you to your happy place.  

And that's how I feel right now.  Like I'm a square peg trying hard to cram myself into a round hole.  Like I'm not being true to myself.  It feels awfully unauthentic to try to teach and expose certain things to my kids that I've never delved into myself.....that have never been my passion.   I do, absolutely, feel that it's okay to expose my tiny people to such things, if and when they want it.  But to do so now, when they are but tiny people, feels awfully contrived and disingenuous.  

In twenty years, I want to be able to look back and see that I was present:  that I gave my kids myself.  Myself.  Not who I thought I should have been.

Right now I'm not sure how well I'm accomplishing this, or even if I know how to.