The woman in the mirror

Almost a year ago, something shifted in me. Or maybe, unknown the shift started much earlier, two years ago when I was persuaded to try to make a change every weekend, to try something different to break the mundane circuit of my life.

The planets must have realigned almost a year ago, because so many things have changed then. Externally, physically, my long cascading black hair was chopped off, lobbed off, lower than a bob. My body though never having been actually what you would clasify as fat was slowly chiselled into shape by hours of working out and running. God knows what I was running from, or running towards.

Inside, I think the shift was a much longer gradual journey. Shifting countries, shifting jobs, shifting perspectives... slowly, they are all starting to make sense. I do not want to be the cliche of a woman who has to move somewhere else to 'find' herself, but I think in the bigger scheme of things...

I couldnt start healing, because I didnt realize how much I was still hurting.

The numb of heartbreak goes far beyond what I can remember. I have done the dance before, had my heart broken, shattered, only to figure out some way or other to piece the pieces together again.

The pain of being stuck in limbo, of an insane limbo of your own making is harder to recover from.

Ive spent this year trying to figure out the things that make me mad, the things that make me angry, the things that make me depressed and annoyed. And though I cannot name them all, I cannot source them all, I can at least acknowledge when certain thoughts gear me towards negativity. I identify when things piss me the fuck off.

And I try as much as possible to walk away, to circle around the pit in the floor. I dont want to hear of things that will make me mad. I stick my fingers in my ear and sing la-la-la-la-la. Juvenile I know, but until I really know how to deal with it exactly, keeping triggers at an arms length helps.

Finding beauty in everything helps too. Never have I felt my mind and my heart so open to possibilities. Never have I felt as close to 'zen-ness' as I do now. And hopefully this is a skill that will only get better with time.

I looked in the mirror the other day, and realized that I recognized that face again. Without realizing, my hair has long outgrown its bobby cut and is starting to graze my shoulder. Tucked behind my shoulder blades I see again the girl I used to be. I remember staring at this image so many times back home in my apartment back when different emotional bombs would explode around me. Sometimes the same face looking back with tears streaking down her cheeks. I recognize her, and recognize that she has gotten older, and perhaps I may say, a little wiser. She is calmer now, and when she smiles there is true happiness there but mixed with the melancholic sadness that can never be fully erased away.

There are things and pains and miseries that you carry for life. But perhaps it is just the way you carry it that makes a difference.

I see her, see her clearly now and she looks back at me with clear eyes too. I am ready now, time to go home now. I know inside me, this new chapter I am about to embark on will lead me to the end story I had always been looking for. Without realizing it, the stars and planets aligned to push me on this path home