The Catalyst

I ask you to go with me now, into my ordinary, extraordinary, beautiful life. I know what it is now. I’ve listened to TikTok and Facebook gurus, read books, I’ve sat in stillness and I’ve screamed into the air and pounded my fist against my truck’s console without holding back. When it happened to me I didn’t know what it was, I just knew I had to ride it, I couldn’t get off, I had to move or I would stay still. And as I moved, I knew that the other side was there. I had no expectations of what that was, but every day, with intention, I would try to quiet the noise, I would try to find some amount of peace. And when I wasn’t able to do this, there was tomorrow. Twenty months later, I am here, and I am not the same.

The solidarity of leaving my husband in July of 2022 catapulted me into a perpetual search for resolution, and I had no idea how or where to start. During experiences such as this, it feels as if there is no person that can truly understand the grief of another. This is the time when we are forced to sit with ourselves, and we must make the decision to move.

There was a lake dock near my rental cabin where I first made this decision. Early on I remember focusing my mind trying to recall when I last remembered the feeling of being at total peace and able to be my most authentic self. My thoughts stopped at the first vision that came to me, and I sat on the dock and watched as my memory hovered above the small front lawn of my childhood home, looking down at 7-year-old me kneeling in the grass. I was looking for 4-leaf clovers, nibbling on the sweet white flowers and observing insects as they worked all around me, on the ground, in the air. My mind was present and my heart was content just to be. I was undefined and free from any weights, and I could be anything I wanted.

This girl was still me, my authentic self had not changed, but the ability to find serenity was impossible and I wanted that back. I reviewed the life experiences I had been through. I did not deny the ugly that had been dealt to me and the shame that I carried for my own transgressions. The convoluted nature of the world that my mind had seen and been hurt by, and that I allowed myself to be affected by had changed me. But now I knew something, and it meant so much to me and it was so comforting; I was, and therefore I am. And if I didn’t believe this at first, then I would keep telling myself that this was true until I knew it. I knew that life was not what I was going through, because I knew the experience and the feeling of being seven. Accepting that the girl was still me allowed me to accept that the fullest version of life was also still me. And that was something to move towards.

---