April Meditations

The maple tree out front has gone to seed. The winged pellets glide and dance on the warm breeze and litters the front lawn and my front stoop. The cherry trees are in full blossom, the leaves a yellowed green, some flowers in tight buds, some fully open. Soon they will cover the sidewalk in a blanket of pastel pink perfection.

I passed those cherries on my morning walk. I also passed my old neighborhood. It is still abandoned & adorned with graffiti, but I noticed on a previous walk signs announcing construction plans to build a new residence hall for the school. My body repulsed at this as something dawned on me: this area is about to change...a lot.

I felt disdain emerge in me when a few sizable groups of college kids and faculty obstructed my clear path to the cherry trees. The only human interaction I was prepared for was pepper-spraying in self-defense. I greatly distrust those food- delivering robots they've got on the campus now; what happened to the world I once knew?

I have found that I am uncomfortable when changes happen to my old hood. For some reason, I want it to look the same in reality as it does in my memory. I have to remind myself often: I have changed a lot, too.

Why am I still here? If everything is different and everyone is gone, why did I stay? Am I resistant to change?

Well, I'm here because the rent is cheap & the location is excellent. I'm also here because the girl surviving repetitive trauma needed a safe place to land.

That trauma taught her (me) a few lessons, namely in the importance of security & stability. But also in the importance of adaptability. You have to be secure enough in yourself to go with the flow. You have to be secure enough in your inner power to accept that you do not control the outer world.

So yes, the girl surviving repetitive trauma became the woman who dropped out & can't seem to maintain enough security & stability to finish. This has born in me a repulsion to academia. I may be smart but that is no place for a girl like me, for a mind like mine, I tell myself. I look at those college folk & I do not feel like they are like me. I was one of them once, I must remind myself. But that was before.

There are maybe about 7 weeks left before my 26th birthday. I'm excited but I am afraid to be excited. I want to celebrate, but does anyone want to celebrate me? Am I going to have the energy to prepare everything for myself by myself? Am I just setting myself up for disappointment?

I have been trying not to frown and moisturizing my face in an upwards motion to prevent wrinkles. I am suddenly apprehensive about the changes of my own face. I can't change-- things can't change. So much was stolen from me. Will I have enough time to get them all back? Will justice ever be restored for the girl I once was? Could things change for the better?

Believe that things will. I must. It is that faith that empowers me to overcome the greatest obstacles with a heart full of optimism & gratitude. Believe that the changes will be good.