Symptoms of awakening
Sometimes I feel like a caged animal. It feels like I am locked inside this body and I cant get out. I feel like I HAVE to behave the way I behave. It almost feels like I am playing a role but I cant seem to get out of character. Like I have started to mistake my character as being me. Or maybe I’m a dummy. Where is my ventriloquist? I have a bone to pick with him!
Many years ago I decided I didnt want to play a role anymore. I wanted to part ways with my master. I wanted to find out what is true and honor who I am. Of course, back then I didnt think along those lines, all I thought was “get me out of this nightmare! I dont want to suffer my existence anymore.” And so it goes. And now I’m here. Writing this. Still the same me, but different. How many climates have gone through my field of vision? How many colors have painted my canvas? And yet, one thing has not changed. I cant even put that thing-less thing into words to describe what it is that has always remained the same. I suppose you can call it the witness, but I am wary of boxing it in again.
Some of my darker, more ominous colors have faded. There is still a mark, a stain if you will. But its not so bad. Yet I still feel trapped. And, I feel more than ever before that I know nothing at all. Which is at once very liberating, but also very confusing, depending upon whether I settle into not knowing or TRY to know instead. And I can see when I hide from my shadow, as if I can ever really run away from it. Wherever I go, there it is. Wherever I am, there I am.
I wake up waiting for something to happen. Its like each day I’m just trying to get by. In the waiting room, waiting for my new mind. But instead, I keep having to look at my old mind. I have to look at how much I hate myself and how little I am doing that is “good”. Why am I so ugly? Why am I so awkward? Why can I never say what I want to say? Why do I keep going in circles? I just want to like myself. But I’m starting to think that I cant. Perhaps I have to go beyond even liking myself. Maybe its ‘myself’ that is the problem.
Everyone looks so shiny. Almost plastic. No one wants to admit that they are human. Or if they do, they talk about it in “past tense”. But what about now? I feel it all the time. Do you? We are so human. And that is so ok. Why not just bare it all? Because of course that means we have to admit that not everyone will like us. And we really have to come to terms with how OK that really is. Being who you are has to be enough, without all of your accouterments. True life, as they say. When no one is watching, who or what are you? Before your story, before your history. Just standing vulnerably without any brush strokes. The bare canvas. Can you be so bold? I’m willing to try. Everything else has been done already