Growing Pains Pt. 2

It’s back. 

That feeling. 

I thought for sure I’d gotten rid of this time. 

Or perhaps I thought I’d figured out the lesson in experiencing going through that feeling. 

Oh help. Please help me? 

Help me shake this feeling off my very bones, take it from my core. 

I can’t ever quite perfectly put a finger on it, but it’s always the same familiar “thing”. 

Change?

-Yes, it is me.- 

So…it’s change that ignites this gnawing, burning, almost agonizing, yet transformative feeling I feel every so often. 

Fuck.

I feel like I’m on fire.  

I wish there was a word to describe the experience of what it feels like to be so aware one is going through such a deep and personal internal transformation on one hand, but on the other is feeling so consumed with the feelings and thoughts this wave of change brings. 

I am both the riptide, and the person trying to escape from it. 

I can feel the layers of my flesh and muscle tearing apart. 

I can feel this tingling going up and down & back up and down my spine again, in a never ending spiral. 

I can feel my bones quivering. 

I can feel my soul unraveling exponentially. 

Oh help me, it fucking hurts. Make it stop.

But wait…

I think I almost don’t not want to experience this feeling while I have it.  

It is the most familiar, yet unfamiliar feeling in my life. It leaves me at the edge of my seat every single time.

My dance with change is as ancient as time itself. I have always embraced it more than I feared it. Change as a child meant hope towards something potentially better, even if I knew how to be grateful for the hells and horrors I found myself in. Back then, there were very specific things I was searching to jump towards in that change I prayed for as a little girl. Now, I still have specific things I long for, but have so many things I must return BACK to first, in order to truly move forward. 

One step forward, two steps back. 

But one thing from that, that I believe in my heart to be true; is if you are always aiming to go forward, you will. We sometimes just have to take detours to get where we are meant to be.

But how many times must I come back to visit this place of remembrance of agony and darkness until I learn that clawing through it, and surrendering to that pain is the only way I’ll actually get closer and closer to the sunlight? 

-”Forever and ever, my dear.”- 

Oh my, I guess it’s time I truly accept my fate.

It’s just like silly little Alice following down that rabbit hole.

Spiraling and getting lost deeper.

Lost deeper into knowing;

Love and pain are the two first most basic, driving, and opposing things in our existence.

They fuel e v e r y t h i n g.

They may not be forces that make life, life; but they help the cycle of life continue.

Life lives for itself, we are just a piece of that life that can grasp we are experiencing it through ourselves; we are merely WATCHERS.

And yet we try to control it, when we can’t.

You cannot control nature, my dear.

You will never be able to.

Don’t you know that you willingly already surrendered to the entire natural process of life, the second you took your first breathe? And every time you make a choice to KEEP breathing? 

So why are you trying to fight it now? 

How ironic is it that I have always loved and embraced change, and still seek it out to this day, but the feelings that change brings sometimes leaves me feeling nearly paralyzed. I know there is a natural duality to everything in life, but every aspect of it feels like the ultimate game of tug-o-war with my heart. I know that part of the goal is to find peace and middleground in the teeter-totter of life, and yet I am starting to truly realize that the imbalance itself IS part of the balance, and I think we have all long forgotten that. So when it comes to what change really means; change means sacrifice. And now, when I ask for change of something I want, I must be willing to give up something in return, even if it wasn’t something I agreed to let go of.

Every part of the process of change requires surrender, sacrifice, and trust.

Do I believe that you MUST feel pain and loss to gain what it was you truly wanted; being happiness, peace or success? No. Not everything that happens to us, needs to be aquired by pain being given first in order to be worthy of receiving, but when we do have those inevitable experiences, it can allow us to understand what it truly means to love, and to know what matters most in life.

Love IS pain. And pain IS love.

When I say “pain is love”, I don’t mean in a damaging, diminishing, fear-based, controlled way; to a person, place or thing. Those are truly harmful things that create false beliefs, coerced thoughts, fears based thoughts and/or responses. When I say pain is love; what I am saying is that when you feel pain, or at least certain kinds of pain, it comes from the fact you had love for what you now have pain for. You cared so deeply, you loved it or you loved them it now hurts to not have it.

Like the pain you feel when you lose a toy as a child. Pain you feel through your first heartbreak in middle school or high school. Pain you feel from not getting that job you wanted so badly as a young adult. Pain from grieving someone that meant so much you but isn’t in your life anymore, whether they died or not.

These pains come from love, first.

Natural pain.

It is part of nature, and so; we must all have a dance with it.

And love is pain.

When you open up yourself to joy and love, you are inherently risking pain to find its’ way into that opening. Just like an open wound can expose you to so many things. The wound may heal itself with time, because the body is quite a wonderful and miraculous thing, but there are times where that just doesn’t happen. We get sick from that wound, then have to go into a deeper recovery than we initally thought. Sometimes things don’t always work out the way we imagine them too, even if we think we’ve figured it out to a T.

Happenstance exists.

Things beyond our control, are fact, not fiction.

So sometimes; we love people, but must accept that one day they’ll pass away, leaving us. You might find yourself caring for a person so deeply, but deep down know it just isn’t working out anymore and have to choose yourself. You pour your heart into creating your art, just for it to somehow be destroyed after all that hard work. Your car breaks down on you, leaving you in a space where you may have to alter a lot of your current life to that new circumstance.

It’s just the way life goes. Sometimes things happen to us that make no sense, nearly blindsiding us. Nothing is promised, and nothing is truly permanent. “Tomorrow” and “later” won’t keep coming forever, yet is neither ever really guaranteed. And you can’t take anything with you to your grave except for the knowledge and outlook you have, of what this life taught you.

That is the beauty of being alive as a human.

The fragileness of it.

I still feel like I’m on fire, but now I’m embracing it.

Set me ablaze, like a pheonix rising from the ashes.

Leave my heart and soul burning, stoking that spark of life to burn even brighter within me.

Let the pain be a reminder that I am alive, but do not let the feeling of pain turn into the only thing that makes me believe that I am alive, because that is far from the truth.

Accept life for as it is naturally, wholeheartedly.

Do it while still being a little bit scared. Do it a little bit unprepared. Do it a little bit unsure. Do it blindly. Do it unapologetically.

Just do it. Surrender to the natural eb and flow of life the best way you know how, with wherever you currently are on your path. Embrace human life for all it has to offer, and watch how it can surprise you and still teach you so much; about life, about others, and most importantly about yourself and the way you appreciate life.

And most importantly remember; that you do not need bad things to happen to you in order to have something good. Your pain is not meant to be the only thing that turns you into who you are, but if you allow yourself to learn from it, you can encounter less pain by choosing to react to future pain with the wisdom of love you gained, and sink deeper into that love and joy.

All my love, -A.