Metamorphosis

       Metamorphosis.  I love that word!  According to the dictionary, it means:

Biology . a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult 

butterfly. 

Now, talking about pupae doesn't sound so exciting, but just imagine the transformation from an ugly little caterpillar to the majesty and beauty of a butterfly that flies away into its own world, free to go where it wants.

This change so perfectly describes my own journey these last few years.  For so many years, I defined myself by my career.  I didn't know anything else.  I hid away from life by staying busy and never having time for anything else, including relationships.

This truth stayed constant during my time as a business owner.  As much as I loved what I did, working with dogs every day, I still worked 10-12 hours a day and hid from the rest of my life.  It was easier not to deal with the train wreck that started back when I was a child.  I focused on work, buried my head in the sand and pretended to myself and the world that I was just fine.

Fast forward to 2013.  My illness had become too great for me to maintain a career.  I had been derailed.  So, I turned over my business, and went home to die.  After all, what was there to live for without a career to go to every day?  Add to that the chronic physical pain of my illness and I wasn't a happy camper.  Then, just because I wasn't uncomfortable enough, the flashbacks started.  Yep, my time as a victim was not over.  My military career, the time that I thought I was the strongest person I had ever been, was the time that I became a victim all over again.

The next few months were a drug-induced blur.  I'll just say that without the help of a few special people, I'm not sure I'd be here today.  But that's old news.  I'd been talking about how I had managed to come out the other side, a stronger happier person, but I was still fooling myself.  I was still trying to control my life and my outcomes and getting frustrated when I couldn't.

The metamorphosis happened last weekend.  I was bored and frustrated because I was bored.  I was angry that I was bored.  I spent the whole day angry because I felt that I was stuck in a rut and not able to get anywhere.  That night, I lay there, thinking, about how ugly I had been to my husband that day.  How short and impatient I'd been with my dogs.  And it finally dawned on me.  I have to let go.  I have to breathe in and just let it happen.

What is happening is that I'm getting my confidence and my creativity back.  I realize that the end of my career is not the end of my life.  It was an end of that journey.  I feel that I'm on the precipice of something new. 

Something exciting and challenging. And you know what's great?  I have no idea of what it is.  I just know that I'm about to start a new journey towards something great.  And that's what I mean by breathing in and letting it happen.  I can't force it.  

All I can do is enjoy every day, keep learning and wait and see where this journey takes me.  But my metamorphosis is complete.  I've climbed out of my shell and I'm ready to fly, wherever the wind takes me.