a weight off my shoulders..
this morning, I awoke to the most beautiful weather I have seen this entire year. it was so beautiful that I was able to revive an old ritual of mine - when I find myself with a lot of feelings and stuff on my plate, I like to take a walk to the very back of my yard, near the woods, and sit down and let myself sit with my thoughts.
as I did so, I felt the sun shining down on me, and I focused on the sounds of the dancing wind and the birds chirping. I reflected on the past year of my life - I've watched myself go from hopelessly depressed and unsure of myself, to beaming with pride, and a renewed sense of love for myself and for who I am.
at some point, when my eyes were closed, I felt a wave of relief wash over me, as if I were a storm battered coast - the ocean licking me clean and filling me with a purity of thought and emotion I haven't felt in forever. I came to the realization that I've been trapping myself in my thoughts and self-expectations. Since last year, in my haste to pull myself out of my depression and my poor academic standing, I shut myself off from my feelings and interests - I figured they were getting in the way of my productivity, which had been at an all-time low for a year. Luckily, this worked, and my grades got better, and I'm doing really well in school.
However, I felt less like myself. I wasn't allowing myself to be interesting - my hobbies took a backseat to scrolling through social media & waiting for the future to come to me; I didn't go anywhere and I didn't experience things as deeply. I also embraced my masculine side to a fault - I didn't allow myself to feel as deeply, and I didn't access my emotions, unless they were fear or anger, or objective neutrality. In my work, I was driven solely by the want to appear normal and functional, especially in school. My motivation was fear of failure, and a need to satisfy social expectation. Now, I feel like I can be driven much farther and much more strongly by my love for my work, and my interests, and my love for myself.
I see that I am a complex human being - I don't like adhering to strictly masculine modes of expression - I am likely somewhere in-between man and woman. Some days, I like being manly and maybe a bit more stoic and less expressive. But other days, I find myself overflowing with feminine energy and veritable excitement, and I feel the need to dress myself up in pretty outfits and jewelry. I know these are both incredibly stereotypical means of thinking about men and women in general, but these are my feelings, and I don't know a better way to express them in words.
In Taoism, it is thought that one must embrace their masculine and feminine sides equally - one's Yin and Yang. These two forces are said to be complementary, and it is best that one's feminine and masculine sides live together in harmony.
In that moment when I sat outside and let the sun and the waves of relief wash over my body and mind, I felt a weight being taken off of my shoulders. I feel as if I can jump higher, and run farther, and see the good in things I wouldn't have before. It was like I cracked open a deeper part of myself I had never accessed - as if the soul were simply a series of locks, or walnuts waiting to be opened. My mind and my life's experiences are the nutcracker, marching along the path of my life; if I stray from my path, so too does the nutcracker.
It felt like advancing a social link in a Persona game. I've levelled up! I'm a deeper and more interesting version of myself, and this transformation has been waiting in the wings, biding it's time for the moment when my depression would subside - I've now realized that things will be okay; I'm not doomed to failure like I once believed. I am capable and I feel like I have direction in my life, both outward and inward. I can feel a truer version of myself dancing forward into the blinding light that is the unknowable future.
The path to happiness is a prickly road - I must prune the bushes at the sides, or I'll get caught, and I'll bleed. And if I turn to look backwards, I'll twist myself up, and it's harder to get out. Things only get better when I look ahead, with my scissors sharp and ready, and the path clear - and now the fog is gone..