It’s my birthday month, my babies. So do me a favor, go to your comfort spot- where is it by the way? Is it your bed with fresh air and low lights and candles? Is it your living room, wrapped in a blanket with classical music playing somewhere else? Is it in the gym where the loud bangs and the fast music drown out whatever is in your head? Is it the bathtub where you can sink into solitude with something to read, something like me? Anyway, go there. Turn on Nothing New by Taylor & Phoebe (you know THAT album.) It highlights the cracks in my heart like the light a baby chick sees coming out of its egg. There’s always beauty in ugly truths after all.
In twenty four I sought the things I placed behind me. The very same things I realized I didn’t feel at twenty three, due to my own hand. The emotions I walled myself away from. The things I told myself I didn’t deserve. I confronted the fact I lost the wonder of life; the eyes of a child long before I set out in adulthood. I forgot the magnitude and the beauty of life itself, not just the magnitude and beauty of me as well. I let myself become hard long before twenty four, so I ventured to make myself softer throughout it. And unfortunately (maybe fortunately,) I still want to run from that. Becoming soft is far more difficult than becoming hard; becoming hard is painful but not terrifying in the beginning. Becoming soft takes more strength to remove the walls than to build them. Yet there is an equal amount of difficulty for me inside, as there is outside, of that ice castle.
This last year I went through the different parts of me brought on by the different ages of me; the parts of me who are never pleased with me. I decided to reopen what I thought were healed wounds; I opened every box, and I started sifting through everything to ensure I could find the best parts of the dark corners… But on the outside, they blend so well you couldn’t tell them apart: the coldness from 21, the warmth from 17, the pain of 9, and now the grief of 24. On the inside, it’s a war. Somewhere between wanting to be the forest, and wanting to be the fire lies my personality. Somewhere in between being the forest and wanting the fire, rages the battle between my needs and my wants. Somewhere between wanting the forest and being the fire, is someone dying to break free but yearning for the stability of the roots.
This year has been neither the forrest nor the fire. It’s been vines from jungles wrapped around my throat while flames dance across my feet; it’s been a drought in the desert staring at the ocean wondering how to get there. It’s been me covering myself in coldness to avoid being hurt again and again. It’s been me staring at a green light but not seeing Daisy or Gatsby… it’s just my eyes looking back at me. I know more yet somehow I know even less.
I have experienced some of highest flights this year. I found a place to love and to be loved gently. I sat in the middle of a forrest fire and watched trees melt with passion; a fire that burned everything but me. A pain, a caress, a kiss on bleeding knuckles that I’ll forever be thankful for. There’s something to be said about the sun that burns in the sky, but warms the cat through the window. There’s something to be said about fire: the destruction and the benefits that wrap their way around our skin. I felt the way fire makes you feel alive when there’s no light to thaw the pieces neglected; I found the pieces of the world in the fire that brings life to the living. I flew to the sun, and I felt the weight resettle on my way down.
I felt the gravity of grief for knowing as natural as fire is, ice is too. Despite how high I can fly, and despite how quickly I can let warmth in, there’s a part of me high in her castle of frozen water; enjoying the solitude. She’s the same person in my glass box that I made out to be villain; but she’s a queen on a throne of ice, in a tower big enough for thousands but made for two. She and the me who seeks the fire, that will remind me there’s a beat in my body. She doesn’t let anyone come around, and only believes in consistency when I just want to believe in the romantic notions. It’s safe to say, she can agree on the wonders of world but not the spontaneity of the universe. Nothing surprises us, people are predictable, the ending is known.
Yet, she thaws just a little at time to let the water rush into the forest. A place where there are roots, shade and just a bit of warmth from the slivers of a sun that sets forest flowers in bloom. Never again is the thaw so fast that the forest is washed away. But here there are comfortable situations, pretty views from the outside in, and sincerely a place of what should be needed. Roots that never move unless the tornado pushes through. Just a consistent brush of leaves against your back like feathered kisses on your hand that you don’t feel until it’s gone. A place of forgotten beauty occasionally but with truth that keeps you rooted. Somewhere where there is both warmth and coldness; seasons that slowly rotate. There is stability in the forest in which I reside but just like any forest life gets camouflaged into the scene. Passion comes in greens and browns of the earth I created to nurture who I am. And sometimes you have to burn it all down just to see it grow back right.
Yet here I am, remembering that the planet in which I live are all these things. Maybe it’s not the craziest idea to believe I need to be all these things to, in order to be complete. Balance has never been my strong suit (I don’t even know how to ride a bike after all,) so its no wonder there are days where it feels like my heart is being pulled apart at every corner. It leads me to wonder if it is more painful to have your heart stretched so far with unknown choices it snaps or if it is more painful to have it whole in the face of a life with less options, less passion, and more predictably where stagnation seeps into you. I’m not sure I’ll ever seek out to find the answer; there’s different types of disappointment in this world. Some things are better left to a mystery than to experience.
It has been such a beautiful year despite the disappointment that rolled off of me for so many months. That’s just the thing about high flights, occasionally you gotta come down and embrace the idea of the let down. Sometimes the good things hurt, and the bad things hurt all the same. I’ve learned a lot about my heart and it’s hard to refrain from trying to jump back into the castle. I can feel the comfort in the cold and the distance. I can see the chasm that separates me and a thousand tropical islands calling me. Realistically, I am tired of the one being the one to come down from the castle, getting in the boat and sailing across the waterless ocean for the drop of warmth, and a raindrop of water. I’m tired of having the basic knowledge that fire can be brought anywhere, and trees need water to live, not ice. So I’ve found a spot in my forest and I’ve curled up in the shade; I wait for a season to come along or the flames to break its barriers. I wait for the windows to be opened in the castle and the fire to be made by visitors who choose to stay. It’s okay to save yourself, and still expect people to meet you at the door. You and I both deserve it, effort.
I am in every scenario. I am in every state. I am the pieces of me, separated but complete. There are things I am hypocritical about, and there’s the realization that sometimes bearing the weight of emotions speaks to the strength of the heart. I can see the finish line somewhere off in the distance that I know is where the pain of those certain emotions I will no longer be able to stand. I know where the ending of my story is in other people’s lives. And I know I’ll start a new race, a new dream, a new fire, a new spot in the forrest. Eventually it’ll dawn on me that I’m not in an ice castle but a warm cabin surrounded by ice instead.
I will find more pieces of me. I will find more beauty in the construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of who I am. I will grieve more, and in that grief there will be growth. I will never stop the seasons or the battle or the storms, because I will continue to collect the parts that make me whole until I am nothing less than bursting life. I will not die unsatisfied, unloved, or unwell. I will overcome each old wound to make a life of healing and the pieces will surrender to that peace.
25 and onward is for living, not just pushing my way through life. I will always be New. I will always be inspired. I will always live when there are days I don’t get out of bed. I am beautiful, loved, strong, and intellectual. I am passionate, warm and protected. I am all the good things I love in this world. I am and was and will be. I’m excited for the late twenties. I’m excited for the thirties. I’m excited to see how much stronger my heart can get. I’m excited for the beauty. And mostly, I’m excited for you too, to join me in the place where we are whole and in awe.
Watching the earth turn again for me,
Gabe. 💕
Thoughtfully and Faultfully, Gabe 