We all have one, once a year, whether it is momentous or quiet. We all age, second by second and day by day. We grow into ourselves, our faces develop lines reflecting our character and our relationships reflect our hearts, while our paths demonstrates our spirit.
How do we become? Some like caterpillars do it without thought, effortlessly creating a cocoon then blossoming to a thousand smiles.
When I was young I was blessed with three Great grandmothers. They were Great. They taught me what love was and that it was not my fault that I was what I was. It was still hard. Sometimes I had to go home. I told stories to myself of what love and care really should be, I created excuses in my heart to dampen the wounds from those closest to me. Those stories got me through a childhood full of emotional traps, spiderwebs and sorrows. I lived a thousand lovely fantasies in my head.
I never chose to become something subtly cruel. I could have easily. It was modelled for me. I could have set emotions aside, they're awkward anyways to carry around inside. I could have become my father's daughter, finding happiness in trapping and killing animals.
Instead I found the person I wanted to be through looking outside my home. I looked in books, fairy tales that inspired because the hero faced darkness around and within but perservered to go beyond. No guilded edges, stories with sharp glass and death. Stephen King 's Cycle of the Werewolf, the Stand, Hans Christian Anderson, the Illiad. Light reading when you aren't yet ten. The heros resonated, their characters called to me. They sang "Who do you want to be?"
People ask "What do you want to do, what would make you happy?"
Odd question, I think. What makes me happy is making the choices to live, to care, and to be who I've become despite the shadows that will always roam in my head and the scars that will always pattern across my heart. I consider those scars like the patterns on the wings of butterflies. My spirit burns as an intense lightening, capable of light and destruction. Each of us has this struggle.
Today I stand at a Vista looking back. I've come a long distance. I am humbled and honored by the shapes of the hearts around me. I am blessed by thousands of glowing, growing hearts. My spirit dwells in a beautiful circle of love. If you could all see it the way I do: you would see yourselves as flowers, trees, mountains and golden plains, with a few volcanoes too. I am an ocean, tide going in and out. Just appreciating the view and honor of being in your presence.
Today I grow older by seconds and minutes as always, but in my thoughts today are every single one of you. You are the richest gifts. Today, my birthday wish is that you treat each other well, you treat yourselves with love- because I love seeing you radiant and nothing is finer than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment