Inside a Chrysalis

Is there pain inside a chrysalis? I’ve often wondered what that caterpillar feels as he goes through his magnificent change to become something totally new. What must he endure to become the marvel he was meant to be?

Turns out, it’s nothing short of annihilation.

When the caterpillar closes itself up inside his chrysalis, he releases enzymes that dissolve his body into a gooey puddle of proteins. Everything he once was literally melts and becomes unrecognizable. No cell is left untouched; no nanometer is left unchanged. His old self is utterly destroyed.

Looking at that formless slop, you might think ground beef has a better chance of reconstituting itself as a cow than this slime has of becoming a butterfly. However, in the midst of that mess lies the caterpillar’s salvation, its hope. They’re called imaginids.

Imaginids carry genetic code which instruct the caterpillar mush to become various parts of the butterfly’s body. There’s an imaginid that creates the head, others that create the wings and so on. Where do these imaginids come from? They’ve been in the caterpillar since its birth. In other words, the caterpillar’s power of transformation resides within him — always has — but only through his destruction can he access it.

In short, change requires loss.

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5am. I lie in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, tears pouring down my cheeks, as my mind stumbles in a confused circle. How did this happen?

“I think we should divorce,” my husband of 17 years tells me.

Two weeks later, he’s moved out, and everything has changed. My life, my mind, have become a chaotic dance choreographed by pain and fear and regret. I’ve been gutted emotionally. I can barely breathe. Some days, I can hardly stand. An oppressive fog presses in around me, smothering me with grief, blinding me to the way forward. I can’t tell if my next step will land on solid ground or toss me headlong into a pit. I feel lost. Vulnerable. Alone.

I spend the next several weeks slogging through my days, ferried only by numb routine. Friends ask me how I feel, and I have no answer for them. I’m full of emotions, but none I recognize. My thoughts no longer run in the same habitual circles. What I need, what I want has changed. My present, my future, even my entire past look different to me. The ‘me’ I thought I knew so well, that I was certain was solid and enduring, that was my essential self, has vanished and has yet to be replaced — by what, I don’t know.

It’s then that I realize…the enzymes have gone to work.

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I often wonder if the caterpillar knows what he’s in for. When he spins those first threads of his chrysalis, does he know the pain that awaits him? Is there ever a moment of dread, a desire to turn back, a thought — however fleeting — that he should just stay the way he was? Or does he plunge forward, trusting that life will carry him to where he needs to be? Does he know he already has his imaginids inside him, or are they a welcome surprise that he discovers along the way?

It’s probably a safe assumption that, lacking a complex brain, the caterpillar doesn’t question, doesn’t reflect, doesn’t even fear his impending and requisite annihilation. He simply does what nature has programmed him to do in that moment with no thought given to shoulds or what ifs.

Lucky bug.

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The past several months have been a tempest of adjustments and confusion, arguments and miscommunications, and plain old pain, all leading in one way or another to this moment. I sit across from my lawyer in his office. Before I sign them, he explains to me each document that will finalize the end of my marriage. I hear his words. I understand what they mean. I sign. But ‘me’ — I’m absent. I’m still a formless puddle…waiting…

Questions bubble up from the mush — how long will this transformation take? Where will it lead me? Will things be better or worse? Will I get through? Shoulds admonish me. What ifs drive me to worry. There is definitely pain inside this chrysalis.

But there is also faith. I can’t say how long this process will go on or where it will lead me. But I do know one thing. I want this to change me. I will not let this pain leave one cell untouched. No nanometer will be left unchanged. I will let this annihilation open me up, humble me, and teach me to love and give and accept in ways I never have before. I will let it make me fearless and compassionate and wise. I will let it soften me and strengthen me and expand me. I will let this emotional annihilation do what annihilation is always meant to do: make us fully human.

I think I found my first imaginid.