Underserved Crown

I guess my greatest fear was that of not having enough great stories for the grandchildren. That I’d live a dull, uninteresting, meaningless life and in the end, I still wouldn’t know what I was truly made of, still wouldn’t have conquered myself. On some level, I’m still afraid that might happen. But then, at one point this year I did something that absolutely blew me off course and shook me to the core, something that might take me a while to forgive myself for…but this is the artists’ curse …to simply be unable to live on the surface of life, to ask `why` and `how come` in a million different ways, to not spare oneself of their pain and run from it, instead to experience it over and over again, then find a million ways to express it and transmute it to something beautiful.

But this game isn’t for beginners and it almost got me killed. I risked too much, lived and felt and thought too much, all at once. Lived a lifetime in a single year, on the edge of things until everything got out of control. Until I fell and there was no one there to catch me. On the surface, everything was alright and nobody could’ve predicted it – they never can although, in retrospect, I was unconsciously leaving small signs in places, in my own way, I was whispering for help. But if you’d told me a year ago it would come to this…I would have laughed myself to death. Oh, how easy it is to cross the lines you  shouldn’t! And – boom! Pandora’s Box is wide open and there is nothing you can do to unsee the monsters inside it.

  

I’d tantalized my demons so much, that they all attacked me at once. I’d delved so deep into my mind, that I couldn’t find my way back. I’d summoned the Devil inside me so many times, it eventually came out to get me. I’d provoked Death and…it finally showed up at my door, ready to take me with it.

Seef-hypnoses, lucid dreaming, meditation, visualizations, past-life regressions, introspection, dark-side exploration, decorporalisation, `healing` past trauma, smoking weed, chakra healing…all this New Age sh*t – you name it, I did it. But I did it all wrong. Mostly, because I did it all alone, unguided, all at once, without rules. You know…eclectically.  Thought I’d be strong enough to handle anything that might come upon me, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready for the depths I’d reached, so I got lost in the process, with no hope of ever coming back.

In my travels, I saw more than I could explain, rationally. So I won’t even try to, until I’ve understood why my journey had to take such an unexpected turn. I am not ready to talk about what I saw on the other side yet, but that day will come once I’ve recovered. For now, the puzzle that I am is still a mess, pieces everywhere, all over the place…but I’ve started the reconstruction process. It’s going slow, but at least now I can say I understand a wider array of people, unlike before, when I just thought I did.

And I will not try to defend myself to anyone – not as long as my belief in the duty and responsibility of self-exploration remains the only constant, that the inner self is much more important than the outer self, the façade, that which we want to project and show others – the experience I’ve had is so vast and extraordinary, it almost makes me feel to small and unworthy of it’s magnitude and the more I think about it, the more grateful I am for the scars it’s left me with. I am learning to insert them into my story, to make them my own, as they keep me grounded and remind me of that time I almost lost my soul.

Had I lost the fight, I wouldn’t be here today, understanding more than ever how magnificent and fragile life is, like the wings of a butterfly, like falling in love, like music, like the Earth, like a silk dress, like our mind.

We only have one chance at living and, at the end of the day, we all have bruises, we all fall thinking we’d never get up, we all lose track of time, we all make mistakes, we all lose our soul, bit by bit, we’re all fighting our demons, we’re all looking for God, there are millions out there feeling the same – we are never, truly alone.

  

On a symbolic level, the old skin has to be shed so that a new skin would grow. The old self has to die so a new self would emerge. The Phoenix had to burst into flames…you get the point. This might be the lowest low I’ve ever reached, but on the plus side…the only way out of it, is up.

To my parents and everyone who loves and is there for me, supportive, patient and kind, to all those who are constantly doing research so they can understand what I’m going through, to those who are taking their time to check up on me, to those people who seem to think that I am an amazing person after everything that’s been, and to all those who I keep hurting in the process – I apologize, I’m still learning about myself.

P.S.: I’ll be back!

Green Eyed Kisses,