“I’ve settled for crumbs for so long.”
“I don’t ever want you to have to settle for crumbs again.”
This weekend I went through the highs and the lows of emotions I’ve tried to put on the back burner for months. The feelings that were channeled through the gym, through fitness, through therapy, through running, through many different ways. And, there they were expressing themselves in a different body, in a better me, in new life experiences… yet, the pain behind them was still there. Lingering. Waiting to boil over. Waiting to push me over the edge.
For the past three months I’ve been cleaning dorm rooms as a side job. This weekend was my last time and it was a long four hours alone with my thoughts. Sometimes you can hear things over and over and over again – from different people – but until you really grasp something for yourself you can never really learn or move on. I have had a wonderful support system in my life this year and I have listened to them and taken advice and I’ll get pepped up and then I falter again. And, this weekend I finally realized I am tired of faltering. I am so tired of tripping over my own feet.
So, while I spent my four hours of solitary time cleaning I had a lot of time to process my feelings. My apologies to the maintenance man who asked me where the guys installing the carpet were as I was sobbing in the hallway. I have tried so hard for what seems like a long time to not feel and not think about certain things but I knew I had to do it to finally let go with both hands. I had to think about all the things I’ve tried not to that made me sad, made me have this homesick feeling for something I haven’t had in so long, made me happy, made my stomach flip flop… I had to think about it all. We all process things different and for me I have to think about all the aspects of what I am trying to move through and I have to feel all the emotions that are tied to them. It’s exhausting. I’ve thought for many months if I just stuffed all my good memories away in a little box in my mind that one day I could open them back up and experience them again. But, that time isn’t coming and I had to open the box.
I feel like the past almost six months has been a complete metamorphosis for me. I was a little caterpillar and I went into my cocoon for a little while and kind of got myself together and I came out a butterfly. But, you see… this little butterfly desperately needed and wanted another butterfly to recognize her change. To see that she wasn’t a caterpillar anymore. To see she was better. To see she was all the things she should have been before but didn’t know how to be. She had changed. So, the little butterfly flitted around and said, “Please see me. Please look at me. Please notice me. Please want me.” She flitted around and around and the other butterfly noticed her but it wasn’t the same. She was still a caterpillar in the other butterfly’s eyes. She didn’t understand that even though she had changed – that she had shed her old self and become new and beautiful – that it didn’t matter.
The time spent in my cocoon was solitary and lonely and hard. There were nights I couldn’t sleep in my own bed because I couldn’t stand the loneliness. So, I slept on the couch. I slept with the radio on, with the TV on. I got to the point I was never at home. I picked up 65 hours worth of work a week so I wouldn’t have to think. I went out with strangers and ended up going home and crying alone. Once I threw myself into the gym and changing my life in other areas that’s when I became a little stronger. When I realized the change had to be only for myself and not anyone else. I knew I may emerge and things would look different and be different. But, there’s always that little glimmer of hope that beats in my heart that I could be the butterfly someone else wanted.
Sometimes in life you see a beautiful garden and you spot a flower that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s strong and tender and bright and lovely. And, you want it… so, you take it. But, maybe you forget to water it for a little while and it wilts – or maybe it even dies. And, you try to resuscitate it – you water it, you pet it, you feed it, and you hold on to it so tightly that when your hand comes away from the stem you look down and see where your own hand is bloody from the dry thorns. The flower is dead. No amount of your trying, your touch, or your love can bring it back to life again. And, you look at this flower… something you wanted so badly and loved so much… and for a moment you wish you had left it in the garden to thrive. To be admired until you were ready to take care of like you should. That you didn’t have to know what it dying in your own two hands felt like.
I have tried – I tried until I finally realized my trying was only making my hands bloody trying to hold on to something that had already died. There are days I continue to feel like a failure. That I still feel like I’m not good enough. That I’m weak and vulnerable. That I’ve come so far this year yet I still feel such fiery feelings for a flame that burned out long ago. That the missing of some things is so hard that it is physically painful. Writing this is hard… this weekend has been brutal. I have thought “Hang on. Hang on just a little longer” and I have… I have hung on and hoped and prayed and wished and I just can’t hang on any longer. Because what I’m hanging on to is simply a wish.
And, so… here I am… trying to shed the last layer of my old self but the process is painful. It’s not something I want to do. I tried letting go little by little – hanging on to small pieces, but I finally have to let go all the way. I’ve held on with two hands for dear life for months. If I don’t let go I may end up smothering the new me. Because, as I am so often reminded… things are different. I. Am. Different. While the words I wrote in Melted Snowflakes will always be true it’s time for me to be the strong girl I have grown to be. I have to be strong for myself now because no one else can do it for me. I have to be brave. This is real life… we’re all grownups now and playing house is just a thing of our childhood memories. I may still be a caterpillar to some people but I know better. I’m a butterfly now who grew through the winter and spring and finally through summer. And, as the summer mornings have started to turn into fall… I guess it’s time for a new direction of flight.
“a star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seems through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it’s the most painful thing you’ll ever have to do and that you’ve ever done…”
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