Who Are You?

My horoscope today (not that I follow such nonsense, of course) said that "Sometimes you need to remind [others] of who you are..." Oh, how right it is! The question I have heard many times of late is "Who are you today?" I understand the question (having posed it myself many times to various substitute teachers), but it became funny to me when I actually started to think about it. The easy answer is Chris or Sally or whomever I am subbing for, but periodically I do wonder, Who AM I today?

Do we get a choice in the mornings as to who we will be? Can I be Oscar the Grouch one day, Snuffleupagus another, and Bert (probably closest to my real personality) the next? (Happy 40th, Sesame Street!) What are the factors that make me into one person or the other? Getting out of the bed on the wrong side? What outfit I put on? The alignment of the stars? Or the fact that the dog drooled on my once-clean trousers, someone took the last piece of bread, or I almost got run over crossing the street? Some days any of those events will put me under, and other days they earn nothing more than a shrug and a que sera sera. Can I switch my personality mid-day? (Copious amounts of chocolate seem to help me do that, for better or worse.) And do I have control over who I am each day?

Maybe the question I should ask myself is not "Who am I today," but rather "Who do I want to be today?" The next logical question I suppose would be, "What do I need to do to be that person?"

Tomorrow I think I'll be Halle Berry. I wonder what I will have to do to be her. Probably a lot of sit-ups and a padded bra.