Over the last several years I’ve developed somewhat of an obsessive interest in understanding the pathology of human behavior. The lingering echoes of my own life adventures have also made me insatiably curious about the journeys of those who share this planet with me. I find it almost miraculous, how integral each story is to the broader human collective.
As a result of this exploration into self, I’ve frequently been on the answering end of questions forcing me to speak to the likes of… “Whose voice is that” “where did that script come from? “or “what memory can you recall in life or childhood of when you felt this same way.” After the immediate annoyance of ‘what kind of fucking question is that?’ I realized there were invaluable learning’s I wasn’t accessing within myself that held prolific understandings I had so fervently sought after.
The universe has an irritating tendency of nudging me to my heels whenever I venture through the corridors of childhood memories. One of my favorites, however, is when I’m warped back to vivid glimpses of Chicago’s summer afternoons warming my caramel skin, making it sparkly and sticky to touch. I can still envision my 8 year old self, as she twirls on the freshly black tarred south side streets. She’s wearing that favorite, now retro, sleeveless rainbow striped blouse that she loved to rock. Her hair is braided with over 50 chords of kinky twists strewn with multi colored plastic beads held in place by aluminum foiled ends. The clanking sounds of the heavy beads is why she loved twirling and sitting through the 3 hour hair pulling required to don such stylish tresses -was worth every second of it.
Okay universe…you win again. Whose voice would see that little girl and ever tell her to change, conform, alter her brilliance in order to fit the story line of any tale less true than the dreams she carried in her own heart? Whose script over wrote her belief that she was just as she should be? When did she exchange trust in all that her soul held close, for the well-structured suits of societal conformity? How did she get from that brilliant, authentic place to here? Moreover…how do I get back?
The circumstances & adversities that would play out in my life over the next decades would convince me that I was called to be a great warrior; a Mayan princess is who I sometimes imagined. Life experiences taught me to be a fighter, a survivor, who would eventually learn to thrive amidst and despite intense adversity. And as the universe would eventually begin to whisper me home… I’d learn that the true war was an internal one, wherein I had become both the hero – and the monster to myself. And in so being…that little girl inside of me was lost.
I was indeed my own greatest enemy; and sometimes I still am. These days, however, I wave the white flag often. I’m learning to trust that the universe is on my side and has been waiting for me to get there too. I’m learning to ask the hard questions of my own life, that I once cringed to even think of. And the answers…while often through painful self reflections, have revealed indescribable truths.
And in so doing, I am inspired to dream again. Every day, I am finding my way back to the beauty of being present in my own life. Sometimes, I still catch glimpses of my 8 year old self… I’m enraptured by her and I think she’s fucking perfect. I love her and she forgives me for not always being on her side. I watch her colorful beads twirl in the sunlight and hear them clanking in my ears. And in that moment I am as alive and as free as I have ever been and can imagine. It’s like…a glimpse of heaven.
“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”
― Rumi