“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.”
- Richard Bach
Just over six years ago I found out I was growing a son. And, in an instant, it was as though the personality slate was wiped clean … my life split in two – I went one way and the person I was before that moment, went another.
Parents say their lives change, they gush about motherhood and how they wouldn’t want it any other way, and they give childless people a tough time when they make a conscious choice not to go that route. They sever themselves from the people they were and blindly take on a new role and a new personality. A brave choice? The only way to survive? Who can say? … we all have our self-preservation tactics. But I have never been able to sever myself from the knowledge – and, yes, occasional envy – of that parallel dweller who took my life at the crossroads and left me with a stranger in the shape of my baby; my husband in the shape of a stranger, and no manual on how to deal with either.
And that diversion led me to the next intersection.
Divorce Ahead, the sign read. But no one was paying attention. Usual story – one person is texting and the other is changing the channel on the radio … you lose concentration and before you even look up, the ten-ton truck has mowed down the SUV and no one knows what’s hit them until they’re in ICU figuring out who’s going to pay for the mess.
But then you start the rehabilitation part … and you get a chance to nip and tuck. You get rid of pieces and you find bits to fix, and you discover all the parts you were always told you had to fix … well, they actually weren’t broken at all.
I have been to so much therapy in the post-baby years – I’ve been to counsellors who have told me to guard myself by donning cloaks of protection, I’ve seen healers who have told me to shed said cloaks and live with truth, I have been to therapists who have told me to live with authenticity and those who have encouraged me to compromise myself for the sake of my relationships. And at the end of that road, the only real choice I had was to just shed it all and emerge openhearted … and with a lot of raw nerves. Not fragile, just exposed.
So who is this parallel dweller I wonder and would I even like her, now that I see her from this perspective? I can tell you she is obsessive, controlling, fixated on money, job and investing for the future. She works hard and long, trains to the point of obsession and never compromises on her desires. She gets what she wants, when she wants and is incredibly lucky because she gets away with it all. She is so guarded that she takes life’s knocks like spandex and is unaffected by the attitudes and opinions of others. She doesn’t take compliments because they make her weak and she needs no one … ever. She is a stand-alone deal and she is invincible. She’s got a huge bitch button and it’s dangerously close to the one that sends her out of control. I’m not sure I like her but I miss her sometimes because she’s so much stronger than the person she left behind, a person I recognise so vaguely since it is all so new.
You can’t stay a caterpillar forever. You have to trap yourself in a cocoon for a while in order to emerge one day as a butterfly. I have stripped away the parts that were there for others, I have exposed the parts that were locked away because others couldn’t handle them and I have taken off the protective cloaks that shielded me from the parts in others that threatened to damage me. All the shielding, guarding and pleasing has been replaced with authenticity and trust that the people who love me are the ones that can handle this bare truth that lies within. The relationships I keep are those that allow me to expose the parts of myself that scare even me.
I’m just waiting now for my wings to unfurl and then I will see if I can fly.
