"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." - Arundhati Roy (1961 - ) Indian Writer and Activist
After what seems like months of struggling with personal and business stress, change and deadlines, I finally feel as though sunshine is beginning to burn off the fog that I've been in.
The other day I scrolled back through the last several months of this blog. I was horrified by the tone in some of my writing. God only knows why someone would read it - it's not like it is 'feel good' material. It has been really depressing and unsettling.
It's like I got lost. In a way I guess I was.
Like the analogy of - you can't see the forest for the trees - that's how I'd describe the last few months. I was in the middle of the cool, evening forest, snagging my sweater on sharp twigs, walking in circles, feeling as though I wasn't going anywhere.
Then this week, it's like someone spun me around, pointed to a clearing and said... "just go that way."
And I felt a little like an ass... 'you mean... it was over there... the whole time? I was so busy looking at the golldurn trees that I didn't see the meadow. Oh look, a cute little bunny...'
And then I felt relief. And I could breathe again - and the panic evaporated like dew off the grass. And the sun shone through the trees. (Rather dramatic? Hey, that's me
But it absolutely felt every bit that good.
"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come." - Anne Lamott (1954 - ) Novelist and Memoirist
You see, I've been growing again. That familiar ache behind my knees as I stretch outside my comfort zone. The feeling I've had during the times when I've grown the most - much like shedding my skin. Growing pains.
Growing can be very uncomfortable. And I don't do it quietly. I have to talk about my pains - endlessly droning on and on and on to my family and friends. I become a one-track-mind freak. Whatever I am growing through becomes my obsessive thought pattern. I wake up in the middle of the night and I know I am problem solving in my sleep. I carry my growing pain like a giant, heavy lobsided canvas bag - over one shoulder. I suffer from the deep searing burn in the muscles under my shoulder blade and up my neck.
Transformation in nature is never easy. But it is natural. And beautiful. It is captivating. Think of a butterfly emerging from a coccoon or a snake shedding it's skin. It is a difficult, challenging and exhausting process that brings great relief, beauty and newfound freedom.
And it is the natural course for people, too.
"If you're not uncomfortable, you're not growing." - Anonymous
It is during times of growth, upheaval and stress that I am forced to find my 'game-face'. I will stew and fret and fight and challenge the growth. I cry and fudge around and bemoan my situation and feel incompentent. (I've done it with bad relationships. I've done it with depression. I've done it when I needed to leave a job. I've done it with weight loss. I've done it when I outgrew a friend. I've done it with anxiety.)
And then one day - I get sick of myself.
I get so sick of my talking, stewing, obsessing, worrying and fearing (false expectations appearing real - in this case, fear of growing and the 'unexpected') that something turns off inside - like a big light switch - and I say "okay Kim - enough is enough!"
"I believe that true identiy is found in creative activity springing from within. It is found when one loses oneself." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906 - 2001) Writer and Pioneering Aviator
There comes a point in my growth when I finally tear through the toughest part of the coccoon, when I break through the skin, when I can finally see the meadow through the last of the trees - and I find renewed strength. Courage I thought had left me. A flow of ideas where there was a dry well. Restored faith.
I was never really lost.
I am exactly where I am meant to be. Today. Right here, right now. And my breathing is easy. And my laughter comes freely. And I am delirious with possibilities.
"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead." - Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 188
Writer
In the distance, maybe only a mile or two from where I stand now, there is another cool, deep and dark forest. But I don't care.
I am on the breeze. Fluttering and spiraling. Dancing in the sunshine. Transformed by my own painful metamorphasis.
Look at my pretty new wings.