Like A Snake Changing Skins
It may seem I’m big on self-reflection. I’m not. I wish I were, truly. Most of the time, I’m running on auto-pilot mode. I notice it the most when driving and I catch myself having realized I’d gotten to a certain point in the road while having no recollection of the amount of swerving and cutting lanes I’d gone through to get there. It scares me sometimes, but it doesn’t linger for long.
I wish I reflected on my personality a bit more. I wish I reflected on my flaws a bit more. I wish I reflected on my strengths a bit more. I wish I reflected on my decisions a bit more. I’m seen as overly-pragmatic by many individuals who are close enough to me, but the truth is, this pseudo-pragmatism persona I project has its roots in routine impulsiveness. What does that even mean?
I don’t necessarily “think” about many things I do, the reactions I exude to my situations seem to be deeply rooted in my ability to make split-second decisions on the basis of…well, we can chalk it off to the vaguely worded “experience”, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? This comes from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper. Somewhere darker. Somewhere you can’t quite put your finger on.
I am the byproduct of 25 years and 133 days that are largely not my own. Am I the imprint of a thousand people I’ve exchanged glances with? Am I the physical manifestation of my parents’ hopes and dreams? I can only say with some certainty that I have come to knowingly and actively try to “shed” layers upon layers of material that was imprinted onto me by others.
I’m trying to unlearn much of what I’ve been taught. I’m trying to let go of many things I was told to hold on to. I’m trying to undo many of the ties that once held me together. Most of all, I’m trying to tear down many walls that were constructed once before. But why?
I’m a believer that history repeats itself, that one is destined to keep repeating one’s mistakes for eternity unless once takes action to change his course.
I once picked up a book wherein every chapter was a different story. The course of each story would quickly introduce a setting that was not too difficult to imagine, and fairly likable characters that were just as easy to forget. Each story quickly picked up the pace, up the point where you were on the edge of your seat at a pivotal point in the story and then…POOF!
The chapter would end at a cliffhanger, and the next chapter began a completely different and irrelevant story with a different plot line and characters. I kept reading onwards, hoping that at some point I would come to find that the chapters were interlinked somehow, or that the story was simply being told in an irregular manner; that it made sense. But it didn’t. The longer I read on, the more I’d realize I’d be left with cliffhanger after cliffhanger. So when it came to the last chapter, I simply didn’t read it. I wanted to give the book the same treatment it had afforded me; that of unfinished business.
I’ve had many relationships in my life that mimicked my relationship with this book. One too many people who’d left me at cliffhangers, all too anxious for what was to come and then…POOF! Not that it hasn’t taught me to afford others that same treatment either. Over the course of my life, I’ve been discarded, and I’ve done some discarding of my own. It isn’t something one says with pride in their voice, but facts are facts. It isn’t a positive behavioral pattern. It’s certainly not one you hope to imprint onto others; but here it is. It’s the old familiar shoe, no matter how many years have passed, it still fits and it squeaks in all the right places just the same.
It isn’t to say everyone is dispensable. Well, let’s be honest, everyone is dispensable, even me. I am — and was — dispensable to others who once occupied a primetime spot in my life; and I in theirs. It has frightened me more than once how those whom I’d called my best friends, confidants, even lovers have now become distant memories — if I remember them at all at times. It worries me only because I suppose it offends me that I would be viewed in that fashion by them. It’s silly, in a nigh childish narcissistic sort of way, but I suppose I can’t help the way I feel, now can I?
She smiled at me, and I knew right then and there that was it. Her smile reflected on my face. I caught myself smiling despite not having actively thought about it. I find myself thinking about what she was wearing that day. The way her hair jumped up and down as she ran ahead of me searching for her parked car; already having forgotten where she’d left it. The way she smelled. The way the distance between our lips felt like the force of two stars colliding to create a blackhole that would come to consume an entire galaxy with all the worlds it held within. Whatever would happen later in life, the memory of that day would forever stay with me. She lay atop of me, came close to my ears and her eyes told tales men would die for, she told me…
What does a caterpillar think about when it’s inside a cocoon? Does it realize what’s happening? Does it simply undergo the process whilst in hibernation, metamorphosing into another being altogether that cancels out its memory of its previous state? Does it simply evolve with the knowledge of its past? Does it break outside of its silky prison, brandishing its newly created wings and take on the world without worry? It keeps me up at night, thinking about what the butterfly goes through were it conscious during its metamorphosis from caterpillar into butterfly.
What do you think was going in Napoleon’s mind when he decided to try and invade Russia in the winter? What was going through his soldiers’ minds? Blind obedience trumping logic and survival instinct? They did get within 20 kilometers of Moscow. For all the good it did them.
I believe in the infinity of change. I believe that those who are resolute and unrelenting are temporary. Flexibility is timeless. Rigidness cannot withstand evolution. Change trumps all.
