A Familiar Metaphor
If I were a butterfly I would say this experience I am having was inevitable. If I were to be a butterfly, I would say that I was in a cocoon right now. I would say that to get here was definitely instinctual.
When I was living my life as a caterpillar it felt like from nowhere, I came upon the strongest urge to stop. That is all I can remember. I need to stop. I have legs to keep walking. I can conitnue marching in all directions, eating leaves and avoiding birds, but without clear reason, I am compelled to arrest. Then I picked this place on the map to do so and I balled up here.
To my worldview as a caterpillar, the connotation felt like I was abandoning my life. Yet even still, and despite the consequences, I felt strongly, yes, I accept all that. It is still better to stop.
Little did I know this was in my genetics. I also did not know there might be something after caterpillar.
Now, inside my cocoon, I can feel change happening. It is happening only because I put myself here, only because I gave myself over to the need to yield.
I know when I come out I will see the world differently as my structure will have modified. Pardon the cliche, but I’ll have wings. However, as I have never had wings before, I do not know how I will react to the environment ahead. I do not know what it will look like to see from so many more angles. I wonder what I will think of the things I already knew...
I can even now perceive, wrapped up as I am, that my desires will shift after this - my apetite too - though perhaps they are the same. Whereas before I dreamed of stems and leaves, now they are flower-filled.
I can already sense some adjustment now because for once I cannot make promises for September - only estimates at best. This inability to guarantee like I once did does not make me shiver anymore. As a caterpiller, I often assumed, without reverie, where I would be.
So I am happy in this cocoon. I know this because I feel so deeply involved in my days but I do not feel like I am chasing them. In many ways I am not even really celebrating my butterfly-ness, or the even my caterpillar-way for that matter. Who I was and who I will become are somewhat incidental. I am celebrating the cocoon, without which I would have not been afforded the environment to transform.
