These bones ache, this body tires. I feel the almost melancholic ennui of the weary. And yet not.
I know it’s time for change. I feel it in my blood, the restless itchy-feet-like, knowingness, that growth and change is happening once again. I feel myself yawn and stretch into it, leaning in, looking around me wondering, pondering, what is shifting both within me, and without. Always painful, a little aching at very least, but ever worth it.
I imagine it’s like the pupae within the chrysalis, already formed on the inside yet carefully held within. Creation and transformation have already been occurring in the inner world, but is yet to show itself very much on the outside; only perhaps to those who know me deepest. Pushing, pressing, stretching against the cocoon that’s been my safe place, a quiet place of stillness hidden amongst the chaos of the outer world.
My chrysalis is finally cracking once again, a flaking, a falling away piece by piece. Shake the tree and see what falls, my love says to me. For me it’s about myself, my own internal landscape, the shifts and changes that are seemingly eternally happening, sometimes slow, sometimes swift, yet always and forever in motion, flowing, growing. Once I split the skin and flake away the old, dead skin, once I rebirth and renew, emerge and bloom, that’s when others generally notice.
So it’s happening again, this shifting, shedding of the old to make way for the new. Just as a snakeskin shedding looks messy, haphazard discarding, but then reveals the shiny new, fresh, emerging beauty. That’s what’s occurring with me now.
I’ve seen the signs of it happening within the past few months. A change in the very shape of my life, slowly, gradually, more and more symptoms of the internal changes showing themselves to me externally. A lessening of tolerance for the things that should not be, in my life. Shedding those things, redrawing boundaries, setting open hearted intentions and closing doors firmly if needed, that comes easier again. A shift in thinking about what’s important, what matters. A yearning for other things that simply will not be silenced. A smile of remembering what it is that I want, a quiet recognition of the things I have achieved, as well as the few remaining notions yet to complete or fulfil.
I want more, but of a very different kind than I once might have. More time. More space. More for me.
I want less of the things that harm me, are unhealthy, or make me unhappy. Less driven busy-ness, less exhaustion, less crap from people.
Some things I want a returning to. A return to better physical health, return to strength, return to my sense of self. Others I want new, different and better for me changes.
A ceasing to accept too much, too little, poor behaviour or treatment. A deliberate movement of the boundaries of those things I’ve been too tolerant of, for too long.
I’m giving far less fucks these days. Less fucks about the myriad and plethora of all that once seemed to matter so deeply. Caring more profoundly about the few things that really do matter to me.
The people, the places, the memories made from adventures and experiences both singly and shared. My own health and happiness. Breathing room for rest, peace and tranquillity. Space for delight, excitement and aliveness. Those are the fundamental things that matter to me now. The very blood of life.
So strip away gladly, old skin, fare thee well. Leave behind the going and doing, pressured driven-ness of achieving and succeeding. I have done enough. I am enough.
Make new and raw, fresh and weeping, the space for deep breaths and an overall slowing down. A gentleness. A return to a stillness and a quiet place of choice for the adventures and experiences of life that I choose, that matter to me.
So I can choose with whom, what, where and when I wish to devote the remaining energies of my life.
Be well – once again – old me, you have served me well.