As many of you know, it’s been an interesting season for me. A lot of figuring and questioning. A lot of demolition. A lot of reframing; rebuilding. A full steam ahead internal remodel with years of bathroom wallpaper being ripped out layer after ugly layer. If you’ve ever ‘un-wallpapered’ something, well, you know it’s not the prettiest of activities and often not a one day job. (And that metaphor will be expanded in a later blog. For sure.)
As many of you also may know, my mom and I haven’t always been super close. Or close at all, for that matter. A lot of this remodel has played itself out in our already strained relationship and caused more walls and boundaries and one sided conversations.
BUT
She has recently reached out in ways that have been notable and thoughtful, sending texts of FB posts she thought were fitting or images she found on the web of inspiring words. Recently she sent me something I am ever so grateful for. Because it really does hit at the heart of what is happening in me. A transformation. A disruption. A revolution of the spirit.
A death and rebirth. And I totally love it.
But, I can’t leave it there. I can’t leave it at the pretty drawing accompanying the words of the woman emerging from a chrysalis. Not because I am devaluing you, Mama, I’m not. I am so blown away by the fact that you are paying attention to this and being thoughtful and intuitive and caring. It has nothing to do with you or that, but only my ever-growing attention to my inability to paint struggle as real struggle. Important attention has been drawn, recently to my all too common way of representing myself in the middle of a struggle, but framing it as something that is pretty and beautiful and full of light. And I’ve been chewing on that and delving into that and in the midst of convo regarding those things in my writing, I got this image on my phone.
And I had to dig into it. Because the beauty of those words do not accurately describe death and disruption and breakdown. Because, really? Do you know what actually happens inside a chrysalis?
The internal process of dying and transformation is not something I would liken to ‘growing pains’. Growing pains are that ache you feel in your legs in the middle of the night as a young kid. This isn’t that. This is a full on digestion form the inside out. The solid mass of a caterpillars body, fat and plump, eating itself alive and rendering itself into a muddled mess of ‘undifferentiated cells’. I mean, no wonder they cover that shit up with a silk cocoon. Who wants to see that?
Toward the end of the digestive cycle, the shiny silky cocoon turns dark and black and the butterfly ‘emerges’. But even that is, too often, conveyed as beautiful. That term ‘emerges’, in and of itself, conveys a positive and beautiful message. But, what actually happens, is the butterfly works it’s ass off to crawl out of that thing. It peels scales off it’s eyes and newly created proboscis and unfurls it’s wings, which are soft and limp and un-useful. It hangs upside down for an undetermined amount of time. Why? Because in order to fly, it basically has to ‘bleed out’. It has to pump it’s own life force out of it’s body to give strength and rigidity to it’s wings.
And, if I’m going to be honest, that is what we are seeing in me. And what’s happening. We’re not talking about the pretty butterfly, ok, we’re just not. We all know she’s beautiful and colorful. We all know she will spread her wings and fly. But, the focus on that end completely downplays the struggle she goes through to get there, the ugliness of digesting oneself from the inside out, the arduous process and effort of actual transformation.
Looking back at a recent text thread with a friend. We were talking openly about mental health and addiction and divorce and depression and total emotional messiness; essentially the human version of digesting oneself from the inside out.
He said:
Being in the uncomfortable shit with someone else is a singular act of courageous love. You can’t make it better. You can rarely fix what is broken. It’s hard. It feels unproductive if you’re not the one hurting (“transforming”, “metamorphosizing”) And there is no predetermined time limit for done, which is daunting.
And me:
That is spot on. So true. Makes sense why we don’t do it more often.
In other words, makes sense why we would rather see ‘digestion from the inside out’ covered in a shiny silky cocoon rather than actually visually experience digestion from the inside out. Makes sense why, when we are actually being eaten alive, we cover ourselves in a shiny cocoon. Because it’s messy, it’s hard, it feels unproductive, there’s no time limit, we are reducing ourselves to ‘undifferentiated cells’.
As humans, we don’t always choose to see that. We don’t always want to. Like that image sent from my mom: “No-one ever talks about this part…you know the part where you’re no longer a caterpillar and not yet a butterfly.” We would often much rather just watch it spin a chrysalis all shiny and pretty, go do something else for two weeks, then reappear for the exciting finale of fluttering wings and freedom to fly away.
And maybe that’s better for some of us. Maybe the mess is too much, too daunting, too dark, too down. We’ve seen it in our family members, our friends, our country. Maybe the struggles right now are so overarching and so overpowering that what we want is the pick me up. The quick fix. Maybe what we just need is a ray of light to help us keep stepping forward in the muck of a pandemic and racism and corruption and a disheveled mess of a nation or a separation or the death of a loved one or an incarceration or not being able to pay rent. Maybe we just want to see the damn butterfly spread her wings and fly so that we can smile for a minute. And that is 100% ok.
And for some of us, maybe not. Maybe some of us want to sit in that struggle. Peer into the chrysalis. See the real version of change. Maybe you want to know how it feels or what it looks like to completely strip down to the the rawest form. To rid ourselves of the superfluous and shallow and get down to real transformation. Maybe there is comfort and camaraderie in watching that happen in someone else’s life, too. Maybe that resonates with you.
These words and blogs might come across a little different for now. A little rough. A little painful. More gritty, ugly. Less ‘pretty Christmas package tied up with a silver bow’ more ‘watching a caterpillar digest itself’. Like the real ache of rawness and change. I don’t know where you’re at. And I don’t really know where I am either. But, I know I’m committed to the process.
“All you know is that every fiber of your being is calling for transformation. For disruption. For a revolution of the spirit. So surrender. Breakdown. This isn’t the dying of you. This is the dying of who you once were.”