I’m finally breaking down the walls I’ve built around my life. Yet I still find myself looking at the broken pieces scattered and feel the need to gather the scree and collect it like a hoarder grasping for something I don’t understand. Like a magnet reeling me back and holding me down I fight to retain my strength. Trying desperately not to rebuild, I sit in the wreckage not quite ready to leave the walls behind but my heart is open to new beliefs waiting to arise and fill me with the power I know exists deep within.
Its a new day where I cannot find a reason or excuse to be too angry or sad. Its strange. Human beings long for the struggle it seems. Seeking something negative or foreboding. I have started to sweep away the scree, now there is dust that at times catches in my throat until my heart moves toward the invisible doorway. The broken framework I am finally willing to let go of, step by step piece by piece and breath by breath.
I see what is possible. The walls gone and the air expanding; change. I think inside me there is a belief that if I let go of the past, of the things I have always known and believed, somehow I have either failed something or someone. Really, what can I accomplish without moving on? My memories are mine and always will be. I am the past and the present, and now I need to not be or expect more. Instead I simply need know more is out there and that I belong to each new moment and it belongs to me as long as I exist. Why measure or contain it. Time is finite but it does not control. It is us who work to control time, a futile dance that only wastes energy and has the opposite effect. Releasing that control is what helps us to see the truth. All my life I have said life is hard. But without these walls holding me in I see my reflection in those around me. I see more often than not it is perspective and denial that is hard; life is simply life. Most of us choose hard, we choose to focus on the negative, to make choices we then presume measure luck.
Life is losing a job, a loved one, dealing with illness and yes these are hard. Life is pain and fear and sadness, but it is also love and laughter and hope. If we spent more time living there in the perspective of love I know life would seem a just little less hard.
Like everyone I grew up with challenges some in my control, some not. I never thought I had a bad life, but I was often sad and angry. People told me I had it hard so I finally, to get past anger and sadness, I had to explore my denial of reality. I suppose my life was not easy, but opening that door to remove denial and face the truth allows me to see beyond it. It has taken years but I now have the courage to see my walls not as protection I believed them to be but as a cage. A prison I had built for myself; me protecting me from life.
Its an amazing thing to see yourself new, terrifying too. To know that I ensured my sadness and anger had nowhere to go. With this new vision I have begun to see opportunity like energy floating through the air, tiny particles that must be seized or lost. What I have learned by observing myself is that I would watch the opportunities float by, knowing they were there but too afraid of the unknown to grab them. There is so much there to go around. I watch others pay no attention or deny their existence. I do the same. I do it less, but still I watch them float away wondering what it could have happened had I jumped. The difference now is that I know. I know when it’s missed, but I jump when I’m ready. I want to jump more.
In the past few years my life has changed drastically and for the better, for a while I just kept questioning, why me? Why am I the lucky one? Then I remember that I have to apply my observation of others to myself. I can’t only see the good in others and deny my own accomplishments. Why did I not lose my job, have the bad marriage, stay poor? Choices, good ones.
Those floating opportunities that I did seize were key. I saw the person I wanted to be with, not the fantasy I wanted to create and I pursued it. That led to a dream that seemed out of reach coming to fruition. This led to growth and experiences, which led to finding who I really am and for the first time wanting to be good with that. I’m not finished there’s so much more. Because of where my choices have led me I no longer see change as the enemy it is the opportunity. That doesn’t mean it makes life “easier” but how I perceive these challenges does. The more I face, the easier it gets and leads to more. I sit listing my challenges and thinking, could be worse. I’m told more often than not that for everything happening I seem to be very positive. I do still find myself denying the positive even when its present. I’m still getting used to what it feels like in both my mind and body. It is a feeling, but it is also a state of mind and being and that is far bigger than I comprehend however I am so very excited to learn.
Namastè
©NicholeDonjè
