Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Change

I like the way it smells after a storm. The way the glittering leaves tremble against the grey sky. The way the cool, wet air clings to me like the past. The silvery pearls that fall and vanish as they shatter on the ground. I listen to the sound, and allow myself a silence.

I feel most content outside after a storm.

There's no one that I have to try to save, nothing that I have to try to stop. There's no guilt over the chaos that has passed, only peace when I pick up the broken sticks and splinters. I like the taste of trees, of earth, of renewal on my tongue, and how the birds start singing only minutes after the storm has passed. When the violent disorder ceases, and everything has changed, it reminds me that each end is also a beginning.

Change is the only constant in our lives. It's the only thing we can count on, the only thing that is certain. In my childhood, change was all I knew. My family was restless, we would pick up everything and start anew in a different house, a different state, every year or so. By the time I was nine, I had moved nine times across six different states.

We change as individuals between the years, the days, the minutes, and there is no moment in which we are the same as we were before. Madeline L'Engle said, "I am still every age that I have been." In my brief adulthood, I have come to understand that though we change, we can never forget who we used to be. There are people I have been, people I regret being, people in my past that I wish I could erase and forget. Yet to forget is destructive. To forget is to deny. For it is the memory of who we were that makes us who we are, and it is who we are that chooses who we become.

I like the way it feels after a storm. There is a certain power that lingers in the air. One unlike the imposing dark clouds, the awesome, destructive might of lightning, wind, and rain. It's an energy, a driving force that propels life forward. A slow, undying resolve echoing across the years that tells us to take in the damage, and rebuild. Renew. Grow.

***

In this life, change is constant. It is terrifying, but sometimes it can lead you to the most amazing things in the world. Be kind, be honest, and love unconditionally.

Love,

Jess

1 comment: