Cool air whispers past as the sky glows a soft baby blue with the coming of dawn. Yet another beautiful morning blessed by the deep chill of autumn.
I find myself sitting out within nature, wrapped in warm clothing to offset the cold as I drink my strong coffee from a nightmare before Christmas thermos and write in my leather bound journal. Icy fingers gently caress the exposed flesh of my face, cooling the hot skin around my eyes as a chilly breeze dances around me.
I enjoy these moments in nature, my quiet solitude where I can remain still before another day filled with noisy interactions.
Endless thoughts trickle and weave behind these tired eyes as I struggle to place them in order in my memory warehouse. As the days draw closer to All Hallow's Eve, a deep ache has begun to surface. One followed by heart wrenching memories spent with my father.
This was his favorite time of the year. Something we both shared.
Each day has been weighing heavily upon my mind, causing my chest to tighten with emotions that have a way of beating me down until I'm drowning within their wake.
Despite my recent and rather explosive change of outlook on life and myself, the gaping wound inside my heart begins to tear and reopen. Reminding me that I have not fully recovered and the pain is still as sharp as it was the day he left me behind.
Try as I may, the strength I've found within myself is no match when faced with the broken heart of a little girl who's lost her hero. I've tried to quell her wailing, to comfort the inner child who doesn't understand why Daddy had to go. I thought she had finally calmed, but I'm once again struggling to keep myself steady as the sound of her weeping echoes a tragic melody within the depths of my mind.
I find myself becoming callous to it, acknowledging the pain but indifferent to the feeling. I simply cannot afford to break down. Not when there's still so much to do and little time to do it. I have made myself a machine; a force of nature that will power through every obstacle it faces and come out the other side mostly intact. Only when the world has calmed and the engine is allowed to finally cool down, able to shut off and be still...only then will I allow her mourning to surface.
Until that time I will embody the essence of stone and get through the challenges placed before me.
No matter how much it stings every time I take a deep breath, I must remain cold. It is an odd sensation, being able to hollow yourself out to continue forward. To push aside all the white noise of emotion for a sharp focus. There's a strange comfort within that living silence. That secret place I go when I'm at the edge of an emotional abyss and I'm losing the war with myself. In that quiet darkness I can see where my path leads and what I must do to get there.
So I reemerge as something else. A shell of a person whose eyes reveal something terrible peering out. But it's only temporary. A means to an end. It will help me get to where I need to be then sink back into the depths from whence it came.
There is still an echo that will haunt me no matter how still or callous I am. The heart will fight no matter how broken it has become and will remind me of how very precious each moment is.
Life is a series of chance, such fleeting moments that many take for granted in their appearance only to find themselves with regret years later. I have always cherished those moments, even when I was too young and naive to understand the impact of that truth. To live each day as though it were last. To love fully, forgive the mistakes others, to be in awe of nature and the life coursing through your veins. To realize that in an instant, it can all be taken away. Time is merely an illusion one tells oneself in order to avoid confronting their own fears. You miss out on so much experience and wisdom when you hide behind your own self imposed limitations.
Each new day is a gift. Another chance to live and embrace the life you still have. No matter how painful, there is always beauty. It's your very own perception that blinds you. Life won't wait for you to make up your mind. It's a relentless unforgiving beast that will stop for no one. Half the time it's trying to take you out. That's why it's so important to understand why you've got to get up, dust yourself off and keep going. To truly fail, is to just give up and never try.
I don't know about you, but I enjoy the challenge. Let it try to beat me down. I've come this far, and I don't plan on giving up anytime soon.
'Don't let the bastards get you down.' And I don't intend to.
Dad taught me that.
-Adieu-
Is it enough to be able to type these thoughts...releasing them into a world of light and noise? I pause my fingers; the soft tapping of long nails against black keys fading into the silence around me.
My heart pounds beneath a strong ribcage; thump-thump, thump-thump. Reminding me there are forces at work inside me allowing me to even breathe, let alone think and be able to write those thoughts out for everyone to see.
Life in itself is such an enigma of workings. All the factors that have to come together to create such a thing...a tiny storm of chaos, complex and ever changing... It makes you realize how precious each moment really is.
My reflective mindset is due to the memories of my Father...and that today, is 5 months that Death came, and took him home.
Today I am going to make a change. To show the transfiguration of within.
I am not who I used to be. I say this with an eerie calm and gentle clarity. She is gone.
I, remain.
Who that is exactly...well, it's still a work in progress.
So much happening and yet I don't want to give too much away. Not yet, not yet.
Things in motion, irrevocable change, a shifting from one stage into another. Metamorphosis and rebirth.
When the wings finally dry, I'll share what's to come.
-Anon-
I woke up with a terrible heaviness against my ribcage, as though something buried deep inside was out-growing the confines of its cage and was slowly starting to push the bars outward into the flesh around it. I took a sharp breath, placed my fist against the center of my chest and embraced the pain.
You don't heal from the wounds of broken yesterdays, you hollow yourself out and make room for the pain. You take it into yourself and let it become apart of you. You make it yours. And that's precisely what I've done.
This will not rule me. I carry the strength of my ancestors within my veins. Strong souls that fought to survive. Souls that carried the heavy burden of a hard life with no one but themselves to depend on. Their strength flows through me and I am not afraid.
I've faced the darkness inside me and realized...we're not so different. Every facet of who I am, darkness and light. The inner child and the raging beast...we are one.
I have been lost for too long. I made it through the crossroads. I know where I'm going now.
There is nothing but death itself that can stop me. I am not worthless. I am not weak. I am not broken. To be able to breathe each morning, to be able to face each new day...is a blessing. The tunnel vision had, has been lifted and I can the trees within the forest again.
I embrace this horrific ache inside of me and no longer focus on what created it. Because what it all boils down to, is this simple truth. It is mine and no one elses. It's buried within me and I'm the only one responsible for it. My emotions are my own. Period.
Today I celebrate being able to type these thoughts, these revelations. I am grateful for the life I've been given. No matter how hard it's been or what horrors and trials I still have to face... I know now, that I am my own obstacle. The walls around my soul have been broken and have become nothing more than shadows and dust. There is a strange kind of calm pooling around my clouded thoughts. An odd kind of knowing; a cold, calculated instinct that's slithering hidden truths through the blood that flows through these veins.
There is so much more to me than I ever realized. The strength of my Father hides behind my eyes. Remembering his words of wisdom. My anchor, my internal lighthouse to guide me back from the depths of my own personal hell. He would tell me to get angry, focus and keep going. That I was the Daughter of a Sailor, and god help the poor sonuvabitch that pissed me off.
-chuckles softly- As much as the pain of his loss still stings, I find myself finding comfort in the memory of him that still lives in my heart. He's still with me. A piece of him I can reach out to and find strength in when I'm at odds with the world and everything in it. All I have to do is calm myself and simply listen...and he's there.
This downward spiral has ended. It's a fresh start, and how convenient that it would all come together on October 1st.
I may not be completely healed, but I can keep moving forward with fresh wounds and tattered scars. They don't haunt me, they simply remind me that I'm very much alive. A beautiful symphony of moments etched into the flesh, both inwardly and outwardly. My soul an open canvas of the story I continue to paint as my thoughts fill the chapters of a book that still has so much left to be written.
Chrysalis removed, the flames having purified and burned away what I used to be. I take these few new steps toward a future yet unknown, but of my own making.
I've been underestimated, beaten down, lied to, used, treated like I was nothing more than a toy, treated like I was inferior. That my thoughts and emotions weren't valid, that I was stupid and worthless and irresponsible. I was too ugly, too fat, too scarred, too emotional. That I couldn't do anything right. That I was a mistake and should've never been born.
Guess what?
I'm still here.
I bring light and warmth to everyone I meet. I am genuine in my motives and feelings for others. I am more forgiving than I should be. We all hurt, we are all damaged and I sure as hell won't be there to cast the first stone. No one is perfect. I do forgive others for their mistakes, no matter the severity. But I Never Forget.
I've learned so much...and have found strength in dying a little inside. We all change, we all move forward. We all become so much more then we ever thought we could be.
I am not the person I used to be and honestly, she wouldn't have been able to hack it. So I've removed the lingering weakness and replaced her.
I am Onyx Wildcat, an Angel in Chaos and I refuse to bow.
In fact, this life will bow to me or I'll break it.
"No Power in the 'Verse can stop me now."
-Wildcat-
