Papillon

“I’m not writing it down to remember it later; I’m writing it down to remember it now.”

My shredder gets a workout when I decide to peruse the volumes of journals I’ve amassed over the past seven years.  I begin writing during heartbreaking times, on the counsel of a dear friend who insists chronicling my trials and tribulations will allow the future, happy me she has no doubt will burst from the cocoon to look back in vindication at proof things do in fact change. That I julienne through buzzing blades more than 900 pages which poured from my pen horrifies another friend.  How, she asks, can I not save these words for posterity?

My justification is a fair one.  The most prominent theme in these raw, unabridged works, by far, is one of intense, chimerical longing.  While there are epiphanies here and there, plenty of sage passages, my writing is steeped in make believe, conjecture I embellish, foolishly believing I can will open spaces in my heart, not understanding my head isn’t yet ready to make room.

We all go through intense periods of living where we feel broken beyond belief. Our hearts, souls, body parts are stomped on, shattered, splintered in a million pieces.  We can’t fathom how we’ll ever heal. In our brokenness we close ourselves off from others, convinced we’re unworthy.  When love, even at its most humble, comes knocking at the door we can’t accept it.  Like the most famous inn known to mankind, we turn love away; we’re certain there’s no room.

 

The brokenness within us stands ready to condemn, threatens to consume us.  When we’re feeling bad about ourselves, embarrassed about a disingenuous act, flaw or a weakness, our first instinct is to hold back, to hide, to shut out those who love us because we feel shame, we’re undeserving.  But if we can allow ourselves to sit in the vulnerability of this seemingly unbearable brokenness, to accept our inherent imperfections with as much grace as those around us do, we magically create the room that’s needed to invite love in.

 

There is writing serving a very personal purpose in the moment and there is writing meant to record the voice of a generation. The work done in the cocoon isn’t meant for public consumption, but the butterfly can’t find her wings without it.

The heart is enduring, resilient, capacious.  It’s our minds barring entry, standing in the way of bringing into our lives what and who we most want, and inhibiting the courage we need to accept the fullness of who we are in order to become all we are meant to be.

What I’ve learned is all writing is transformational. When we make room we find the words the world can’t help but hear.

Love arrives in a stable

absent of tinsel and light

To deliver a message

on a glorious night

The brokenness within us

ever poised to consume

Yet this gift is bestowed

on all who make room