I had to ask myself this question through my journey of trying to rediscover who I am as I aged. It’s a question that all of us must face at one time or another, although being a mom, finding that answer is not always so cut and dry. Sure, a mom is a significant sense of identity within itself, but scaling back, there is a person underneath. In today's day and age, support systems don’t look like the communal parents or ancestors used to have. Having to navigate being the foremost front and center role in your children's lives without support can and will demand all of your inner strength, attention, and energy. It will take more out of you than what the role of a mom is supposed to provide. I think this is what separates the mom within this journey of finding the self.

So, I asked myself, who was I before all that I had become? What was I? What made me tick? I had to travel back further than my dance career. Further back from my years of training. Further than my years in education and all the jobs I kept afloat trying to propel myself forward. As I stepped back and peeled behind the curtain, I saw her… The artist. That creative little girl with a wild imagination. Much like The Wizard of Oz, I had to realize that behind this big journey, it was always the artist in me pulling the strings. It took me to tap my shoes together to discover that all of what I am is because once upon a time I was a bubbling child with imagination beyond comprehension.

This was profound to me because it was like a part of me had forgotten, wait a minute…I love to imagine stories like the books I used to read. I would watch a movie or a show and try to make a different ending in my head. I wanted to make my imagination come true like the Muppet Babies. I wanted to think crazy and big like Pee-wee. So, I worked on it in my head for years. I drew pictures of my stories. When I learned to write, I created more stories. It wasn’t until I was in the 3rd grade reciting my stories to the classroom and having them stuck on my every word that I learned how much I love to do that. My third-grade teacher told me, “Ilene, you are going to grow up and be an author.” And just like that it was like Cupid threw his arrow into my heart. It had never crossed my little 9-year-old mind to be an Author. Wow, the way that touched my soul. Since then, I vowed to be just that.

Now clearly, I did not do that right away since I had developed this obsession to perform on stage and do many other performative endeavors. But a part of me remained true to this dream by subliminally pursuing the art of writing from elementary school through college. Like all things, I went ahead and followed my other calling. Partly, because I still felt too young to tell the stories I wanted to tell, I needed life experience…I needed to age. So, in my youth, I became the entertainer I was born to be in my heart, it aligned me in a way that nothing else did.

Later, I got married and started a family. I tried various writing projects along the way but I became too invested in being a mother. Too invested in trying to cover all the bases like a lunatic. If I could go back I would have told myself, “Ask for help Ilene, don’t run yourself to the ground.” Well, it was my life lesson and this mom's business would have never come to be if it was not for the way I burned myself out trying to do it all.

Now that I reached the place of discovery about the first profound memory of my life I learned that yeah, I’m still that little creative girl with that wild imagination. I never stopped daydreaming. Not a single day passes by that I am not growing my inner stories. I do this every single day of my life without fail. I find it impossible to not entertain all my inner soap operas and movies. On December 2023, I sat down on the computer and I told myself, now is the time to write that novel. If I don’t do it now then I never will. I looked at that little girl inside and said, I will make your dream come true, I will write your elaborate fantasy story. So I sat there and began writing like a machine. I chose which tale to tell and pushed out chapter after chapter going as wild as my mind could take me. I had to embrace my inner insanity to find my true sanity.

Then, on July 17, 2024, I finished the novel. I saw the last word on my computer screen, got up, and screamed. It was the largest fictional story I have ever written. A first draft of 700 pages and 75 chapters. Now I must go back in and edit to the heavens to scale this beast of a story down but in the meantime, I did something that resonated a joy in me like no other. It was through connecting to my early profound memory that I truly remembered, hey you have always been an imaginative child that loves to make stories. You did that first before you became any other Ilene. This was my first and true love. This is me.

So I ask you, what is your most profound earliest memory of you?

Explore it and see where the journey takes you ;)