Earth, braids and green promises

Finding your way back

The air feels lighter, my head feels calmer, my heart has untied its knots. My body, deep into the progress of decomposing into the earth, now has tiny green promises sprouting from my head down to my toes. My hair, brushed and in braids, my head has rid of its hauntings. My hand no longer longing for something to fiddle, something to numb the noise, but cultivating the soil, repotting a life that once felt lost, now growing new roots. My stomach, once a black hole, the root of my anxiety, is now a home to all of my butterflies who flutters gently in harmony. Laughter grows here, and I am nurturing that again. I am no longer keeping my body hostage, withholding what it needs in the name of self-hatred, I am listening. No longer a butcher of my own tired limbs, but a friend the earth has split itself in pieces for me to find. A friend I used to love, used to follow like the big dipper in the sky. A friend I used to spend my summers alongside, biking in the forest, to the shore, to the ice cream shop in town where we shared vanilla and strawberries like a secret. She and I used to live and breathe the same air, braid each others hair, put on dance shows for our parents so they would take us too water parks and zoos and renaissance fairs. I can not recall when the bond, once made of gold, once made to last, once a promise of eternal devotion, ran away from me. Did she run away to die? Could she somehow tell I would betray her in our later life? Was there something in my eyes who gave it away? Holding these confessions in my hand, the worst behind me, could she return to me? Could she return home? Now that the earth has given me a path, I shall make an effort to bring her home. Now when I am growing new roots, I shall be one with myself again.

Becoming one is becoming whole, it is letting myself grow out of the skin I had just gotten used to. Growing is not calm or gentle, it is supposed to tug at your heart strings, rip up the wounds you have hidden. It is death a thousand times to become, and become, and become. You are never really finished with becoming, at least that is what I tell myself as I enter this Springtime, sparkling with potential and green promises. I cannot be afraid of who I am, because I am always becoming something new, something else. It is both a gentle hand on your shoulder and a horrifying thought — you are not meant to be everlasting, you are meant to overcome over and over again.

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lovelovelove,

Amanda