The Happy Sting Of The Butterfly
Several years ago as I drove down the road in my new hometown I was suddenly blinded; like driving into a sandstorm, tornado or powerful squall of rain. What the actual fuck was this? I drove slowly toward my destination and got out of the car.
I called my mother.
“Mom they’re butterflies! Thousands and thousands of butterflies.”
“Oh Suz…its new life how wonderful. How glorious!”
I stood there covered in butterflies, my mother squealing on the phone about new beginnings.
If only it were always that easy. New life often does not feel like the flutter of a butterfly but stings and stings hard, more like the show stopping thwak of the scorpion.
Lately I have realized there are emotions I have been avoiding and I had developed ways of coping that were blinding me to the greatest potential of myself. With three grown children living beautiful lives of their own, I accidentally swept under the rug the power and sheer will it took to make that happen. The people I meet now in my life do not know me as a mother first. They do not know me as the mother of a special needs child or as the single working mother of 3 who lived on 4 main staple ingredients out of a Saturn for a period of time. They see the finish not the path. I have been denying myself the wisdom of my strength and story to stand in the moment. But the moment is new and not the best of me. I don’t know it yet and so I feel unstable. Then I feel unworthy. Now that one, I do understand.
I have entered a time of reflection, my mind blown that I actually betrayed myself like that. The world around me is silent of the want of others and I am between glossy hard driving projects. I am simply listening to the sound of the creek in my own back yard. A phone call with a friend reminded me of my value.
“ why have you forgotten you are a badass with more strength than most?”
Pause……
“because that is simply what I was given to do and so I did it. “
“and so is this…..start again…….who you are now does not deny who you were. It adds to it, or conjures once again the woman you set aside so you could handle what you were given. Let her come out to play. Let’s have some fun!”
So I stand once again in a doorway between worlds, calling back some of my much younger self and manifesting the thing I have a hard time seeing, or mostly believing: that I know how to be here, that I know who I actually am. We are all pieces of God. The mother, lover, friend, woman that I am holds a piece of him and I have been suffocating that piece in me to meet others where they need to see me.
There is a moment in Dallas Buyers Club where Ron Woodruff has his attention drawn to another room by a flickering light, a method he used himself for that very purpose. When he enters the room he is met by butterflies. In that moment we understand the passing of a dear and unexpected friend. Life was changing again for Ron. Was his friend saying goodbye? I will always believe so. But what a metaphor, to use the representative of new life to do it.
So I walk through the doorway and into the flickering light, seeing glimpses of the new me, remembering the best of the old, and let the butterflies gather. I breathe deeply the air I have privilege to draw and lean into God. He knows the way. Everything will be as intended if I stand on the solid foundation of my own lived story. Now, the me that embraces her whole, is repacking her suitcase for future adventures and instead of the shoes and make up that beg for acceptance I am packing those lessons of the past. That is what I will stand in………….that wisdom, that foundation, is the courage for a bright beautiful winged future.
I am ready.
Let’s have some fun.