The Wicker Tome

I can feel myself growing. I can feel the discomfort in my bones. More importantly, I can feel it tugging on the neurons and connective tissue inside of my head. It is stressing the cracks and crevices of the dusty corners inside of my skull and it is ever pressing outward. I had an inclination to believe, even not that long ago, that my mind was full to the point that I was finished growing. I expected an evolution to occur with age, of course, but what I didn’t expect was to be instantly inundated with not only the changes that were coming, but the overwhelming and absolute necessity of them.

This has caused me a great amount of anxiety and uncertainty. Nervousness for not being sure of what lay beyond the next bend in the path I’m traveling has been paramount. There has been this incessant itch in my skin as I have been simultaneously shedding it, and trying to determine what to replace it with when it goes. The proven fact that we are regenerating skin daily isn’t lost on me, so the metaphor holds true in this case. But when you’re uncomfortable, the natural reaction of a human being is to relieve that discomfort. That is what has presented itself as a challenge for me as of late. I am uncomfortable and finding an ease to this burden is venturing into territory that I haven’t explored before. I have to be forthright in admitting that I’m not sure that I have come to any sort of conclusion regarding this newfound itch, but I have come to a place of acceptance of it. My eyes are at least pointed toward the correct horizon.

I feel like in life, when we come to a place of comfort, challenges present themselves to us. It can be at the same time the perceived opportunity for advancement and understanding, but also can be seen as undesirable, or even frightening. Something that our intuition tells us to avoid. I think that sometimes these challenges refuse to be lulled into a memory or placated, but instead they force movement. That movement can either result in stubborn stagnation, or we can grow. But growth is painful.

We don’t remember some of the periods of growth that we have endured within our lifetimes. Learning to walk, learning to speak and communicate using language, learning to read. These happened early on. We were driven by a desire to be heard and to move and to express desires and emotions at a young age so that we could be connected to the world that we were taking in for the first time daily. As adults, I’m sure that the distress and discomfort of these tasks would force many of us into a place of resentment and stubborn immobility. We would be destined to be without language and movement. Nature herself saw fit to give us these tasks with the mind of a child, and we persevered and grew. Then we could move and talk, read and write. And this was only the beginning of the act of growth that is life.

Next we learned to exist in social situations. We were given a particular set of tools and a loose guideline of what it was to interact with the individual personalities around us. We discovered the desire for acceptance and community. We wanted validation for the things that we spent our time doing and learning. Some were happily content as they grew at a pace that was in line with their peers and they had companions beside them as they moved through adolescence and into young adulthood. There was peer pressure to contend with for most of us as the path we were walking was pushed ever parallel to the ones of the groups of people around us. This may have been our first introduction to anxiety and social distress. The desire to fit in, or the inability to do that very thing. This heavily applies to me in my personal case. It has always been an uphill battle to walk the tight rope betweeen social acceptance and an outward personal expression of a wayward mind. They do not always integrate well, and to this day, forty some years into my journey, I have come to that old familiar friend time and time again. Acceptance but not the simplicity of resolution. I am not alone in this, in fact major religions have tapped into this particular distress and comforted us with promises of importance and righteousness.

As we grow into an adult, we at our best thrive, and at our worst merely survive. This is where the lines become blurred and the colors inhabit shades of gray that are sometimes imperceptibly different in hue. We accomplish things and we fall into a rhythm that maintains survival, but if we aren’t already, we all desire to thrive. What we aren’t very good at is deciphering what it takes to actually do that. This causes anxiety and distress all over again as we attempt resolution using futile tactics when all along, I feel like there are signposts if we choose to read them.

Peace is hard to come by. It has to be actively sought and painfully achieved. Peace is the resolution to growth. To grow to a point that you can find peace allows a moment of solace and a chance to catch your breath. How do we obtain it when we don’t have it? By moving forward. I was recently impacted by a poem by Khalil Gibran. It goes like this:

“It is said that before entering the sea

a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,

from the peaks of the mountains,

the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,

she sees an ocean so vast,

that to enter

there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.

The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.

To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk

of entering the ocean

because only then will fear disappear,

because that’s where the river will know

it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,

but of becoming the ocean.”

Becoming the ocean is enduring the pains of growth to reach the destination of peace. To become vast and mighty, and to become an entity that is nearly impervious to the things in its path. Most of our lives, as I see it, we are the river. We start as a trickle of rain, or dew on the surface in the morning, gathering momentum daily as we pass the sights along the way. We grow and we endure, we climb and weave. Sometimes will still ourselves and become a silent body of water, reflecting the things around us and drinking them in as if they nourish our very souls. In the end we continue moving, ever toward the proverbial ocean.

Finding the path to follow is paramount, but the roadmap is complicated. We have forgotten how to slow down and listen, to really look into the void and see the pinpoint of light to follow. These signs are always there, but our brains have become distracted and unable to sense them. When we lose sight of these guides, we feel lost and anxious, distressed and unsure. These moments permeate our lives. We are meant to grow, but we are refusing. My plea to myself is to slow down, listen, and look into the noise. I have found that as I have regained an appreciation for walking among the trees and the leaves, the insects, birds and flowers, I am starting to see the signs again. I am choosing to follow them because I desire for the ultimate goal of peace. In my particular case this is a solitary endeavor. It isn’t accompanied by passers by or traveling companions. The burden is mine alone. It is ours alone. We must endure as an individual. I look to those who have walked the path before for guidance. I have to try harder to offer that guidance myself when I see someone struggling behind me to find their way. I will continue traveling because there is no going back.

I am growing.

It is uncomfortable.

I am finding within myself the ability to understand and comprehend to a greater degree than I was able to even a month ago, so I have to be thankful for this journey. It is introducing me to roads I have not traveled. The comfortable, known scenery was becoming stagnating, so I am changing it by sheer will. I will slip and stumble, but I will keep the correct horizon in my lens.

I desire Peace, so I accept Growth.