Saturday, March 8, 2014

The Girl I Once Was

The difference is as miraculous, as mundane as the ever-cycling day and nighttime.

She used to be so sad, so small.  And maybe she is still, but less.  Life was one big contraction, growing inward while never releasing, birthing, breathing out.  Each year was a new level of rot growing down into her being, her heart an abscess.  And she did not know.

No one that mattered had ever taught her in this fragile, formative years of her starshine, of the intrinsic value of every one of earth's vibrating lives, hers included.

It was a decay born of self-hate, self-loathing.  The not-enough words she heard eventually became her own, whispered to herself as she wept tears she did not, could not comprehend.

It was love that broke through the thick loam of putrid shame and disgust.  Love in the midst of suffering.  Love when she was her worst, when she never seemed to get any better.  Love when she wanted death.

She writhed under the searing light tunneling in through the unhealed strata of her soul.  Love lanced the abscess, unleashed the pus and vile stench of too many years of untended wounds, and it felt excruciating.  Depression's thick dark rushed in, thicker than before, the dank, dismal night of her soul unending, it seemed.

But this new pain, it was a different kind.  Because now there was breath and air on the freshly bleeding places.  And oh, it stung, it screamed, but with the pain of healing.  Slowly, s l o w l y, fresh flesh grew where the foul disintegration used to ooze.

Sun broke through, warming her skin, and for the first time -- she felt it.  And nothing ever was the same, in spite of the new wounds that would come, the new fears and joys and unknowings.

She never was the same. The girl grew, at last, into the woman, as is right and true and necessary.  The girls she once was is glad, grateful to have been given space and light and love, to become. 

The woman she is will brook no criticism for changing.  The universe, the human heart is change.  Do not spit you've changed her way as if it is legitimate for a single cell in this wide world to do anything but.  She is awake now, eyes ever more opened.

She is awake now.










linking up here.

9 comments:

  1. she is awake now.

    ohhh yes. beloved. you are awake.

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  2. Just beautiful!

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  3. I love that photo of you sitting on the porch railing, taking things in. I have noticed when I am at rest that my hands protect the most vulnerable part of me at the current moment. And there you are, guarding your pulse. It's beautiful, this life we breathe... This heart we tend...

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  4. Breath. This is what you give me back. Beth, this is beautiful. Thankyou.

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  5. Beautiful. Glad to hear I'm not the only one who likes my new self, the purest self, best of all.

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  6. She writhed under the searing light ..... Isn't that truth trying to get past the words spoken and letting go those words of shame.

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  7. Sheer beauty and grace! I love all the photos, showing different facets of your personality. I recently saw a video of you dancing with a hoop, too... and that really spoke to me of your inner spirit, the joy, the beauty and grace. That well is uncapped and your fountain is gushing forth!

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"I am glad you are here with me."
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King