What is your earliest memory? It may hold the key to the identity you have built for yourself (which perhaps you may want to amend).

My earliest memory is from when I was around 3 years old, and my family was visiting my grandparents. My grandmother asked me kindly, “How are you, Diane?” To which I replied, “My name isn’t Diane. I’m The Lone Ranger!”

I don’t know where that came from. Perhaps when I was hospitalized for the first 6 weeks of my life and operated on for an abdominal obstruction, my little heart came to believe that I had to go it alone in the world. Then, when I watched The Lone Ranger show, that whole “save the world by being different, by fighting for the right thing, by doing/seeing things your own way” took hold.

(I recently watched this program on Youtube. I couldn’t get through more than two.)

Somehow the “Lone Ranger” icon stayed in the culture, and with my subconscious mind for a long time. Growing up, I didn’t have much support for being who I was. I was truly a Lone Ranger, but one who figured out how to get what I need and learn what I need to know. Without any help from anyone (because then, it just wasn’t there).

The approach served me well. Or so I thought.

Until …  It didn’t. Read More→