Notes on Self

I sit in the quite stillness of my home, surrounded by the collection of my life. Pieces here and there, each unique, and different. Assemblage of a life well lived and still ongoing. What is to come? Will there be someone along the way who will come to join me? Will I continue in my own stillness, onward with my thoughts and feelings? The ebbs and flows of my journey as I continue toward the inevitable end or beginning. But of this particular life it will be the end one day. Each facet of my existence, the unique combination of moments strung together like the décor that surrounds me. Pieces of this and that that somehow has come to be the whole that is me. For now.

I wonder what will come of this inner stirring. Will it wane, will it come with a peace and acceptance or is this the agitation that moves me towards something greater, polishing the pearl within? I feel there is a deep work at hand. The biggest growth is subtle in this life. It grows like a tree little incremental expanse gradually. It seems unnoticeable until one day it dawns upon you the little plant has grown.

Sometimes I identify with my younger self. Then I realize I am no longer that same person. Perhaps a bit of my wild freedom has been tamed now, and that indeed for the better. What a life and time to live. The fervor of the beach towns of Southern California. The pompous edge and puffed chests of everyone standing up against the fence. Turbulent times struggling with identity and feeling the crush of naysayers, the competition fierce to be the star of the show. Perhaps if I shined less brightly it would have been an easier way for me during the blooming of my womanhood amidst the wolves and sharks and many, many different characters cast in the expansiveness of high school. Politics and yet still politics cease not.

Now middle management in a Sisyphean career driven by the same hunger to rise but for different reasons. Motivated by the power and the money, less so by the acceptance of others and the desire to fit in. I wonder how I am so serious now. Well, the wounding and the way can whittle sharp edges if the design becomes such. Where am I sharp and where am I soft? What is this work that I am making with myself?

But there are the beautiful things. Like the tree beside me, cut from the forest. My own Christmas tree. Skinny and wild like the girl I used to be reminding me that it all comes together anyways.