Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Expectant

Have you ever felt like everything was falling into place, a sort of Zen moment when you realised that everything that you've done--all the hopes, all the fears--were shifting into a new focus? Like change was right around the corner, and it was a good sort of change, a path to enlightenment, life in balance, even contentment?

I had that feeling really strongly today. I don't have any real reason to feel that way. I woke up this morning feeling like today was special. And it was, in a way, because I did get some really good news, although not news that personally involved me. And although I think the feeling may have touched upon that news, I really feel like there's a shift in my life coming...and I'm curious as to where it will lead.

And before you say it, I don't have a tendency to be manic...it's an expansive feeling, yes, but not mania. It's more like...being in tune with the world around me. Like I fit the puzzle. I, who for so long felt like an outsider. I feel like I've stop swimming against the current and I'm learning to become part of the flow.

All those years ago when I changed my name as a means of shedding my father's name and the pathetic person I had been, I chose Eilir because it meant (alternatively) butterfly, spring, or rebirth. I felt like I was going through a rebirth at the time. Oddly enough in the years since, I've come to recover the good parts of my personality, the ones I'd buried for so long whilst dissociated myself from the world, and learning new skills and gaining new interests. I became a much stronger person, but essentially I am more the child I once was, only older and wiser. It took me awhile to find her, because she was hiding in a far corner of my mind, which had become this overgrown, thorny place designed to keep everyone out and yet at the same time only led me to more hurt.

Now I feel like the child has had time to grow, to excel, to become the woman she was meant to. And in a way, it's like it's like I'm doing early adulthood all over again, only with a better frame of reference this time around.

Maybe none of this makes sense. Suffice to say I was a really late bloomer. But I feel like I've gone from bud to that loosely furled bud swollen to perfection, ready to burst forth in full bloom. Or, to take the butterfly model, I feel like I've crawled my way out of the chrysalis and I'm resting on a twig waiting for my wings to dry.

I really believe we go through stages in our lives where we face tests, and based on how well we do, we progress to the next level or stick around for remedial work. Actually, I think it's bigger than that, encompassing many lives. I've come a lot further in this life than I think anyone ever gave me credit for. I've surprised even those who had faith in me. I've surprised myself. And I've come far enough where I want to see what lies beyond.

Who knows what's in store now?

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