Full Circle

I enjoy finding patterns in life, there is a sense of stability in patterns. And I have learned to welcome stability with open arms when he decides to make an appearance in my natural state of disorder. It's like a friendly smile, seems sparse at times, but only because you aren't looking for it. I just always forget to look for it, mostly because organization is necessary when you want stability and I just haven't found those skills yet. Anyways, I do love patterns.

I especially love when life comes full circle and I feel that a chapter in my life is closing and new chapter is beginning. I love noticing that pattern. Especially when they aren't overt slaps in the face, like moving away to college or breaking up with a boyfriend, but simple transitions that could be easily overlooked yet somehow slip into your consciousness without necessarily being invited.

If I may indulge in the small dramatics of my life: I have trudged my way through the slow and dry uneventful yet painful time, I have moved my way through a confusing plot with my sanity barely intact, tried to overcome heartbreaking adversity to a point where I was enveloped in numbness and ignored relationships that weathered the storm with me.

Now I am looking at the first sentence of Chapter 2.

I have come full circle, yet now I feel renewed. The strange part is, I was in the valley without knowing it. I was in darkness without fully acknowledging it. I was lost and didn't care enough to change it. How I managed to venture into this valley is beyond me. I guess you could say, it lured me in. What is surprising is that the hooks that were being cast weren't even hooks that my breed of fish consider alluring... I was not attracted to that bait yet I took it nonetheless--I stumbled more or less.

So you can only understand my absolute shock and surprise when I woke up one day on top of the mountain, wondering how on earth I ended up there, wrapped in God's glory, when it seems that just yesterday I was 10,000 feet down under water alone, angry and spiteful. What changed?

I'm cautious in giving myself too much credit. Honestly, I didn't just wake up one day and think "Today's the day, it's time to start over" because I remember every morning I woke up thinking that. Amd everyday I went to bed feeling failed and that my "inner beast" won.

I never thought I had an "inner beast" brewing in my 5'6 female frame. But that's the first mistake. Overestimating your goodness and underestimating your wickedness. My inner beast was just waiting for the chance to wreak havoc during my most fragile state. And she did.

Hurt and bruised, I used to be resentful and ashamed towards the beast within, but now, after a time of healing, I have learned to respect her, maybe not completely or even confidently, but I can fully say that there is a tinge of respect for that beast. Surprising?

I guess so. And I am not entirely sure what to make of it either.

But I know the beast needed to get out, she needed out so she could, for lack of better words, sanctify me and satisfy the greater forces waring inside my mind. She was sleeping inside and every moment I held her in, she was leaching more and more of me-- ignoring her was not an option--she had to be released. It was in God's plan.

I respect her because she is a part of me, and as twisted and cursed I feel with her, she has gifted me with a new paradigm and a strong love for people.

Although it is probable my pain surmount my gains, I don't regret the path I chose. I have unveiled the curtain to the realities of life and it hurt like hell (and I predict it will only get harder with every season of life) but I rather live in painful truth than cushioned lies. Life is still beautiful amidst the chaos. And when you see can see that, you know you've made it.