The Experience of Renewal

I am not the first person to cry out in the darkness. To not see an enemy, but yet be overwhelmed by the desire for one who will remember me. 

I do not remember myself, and cannot resolve the issues inside. 

When I try to recall, I cannot identify what is missing, I simply do not recognize my reflection. 

I was a wife, mother, teacher, friend but weren’t there other pieces? And these pieces, weren’t they good? Didn’t I love and live above reproach? I simply can’t recall. 

It is interesting that the body isn’t simply made up of pieces that can be removed and returned. It is also a whole. Any part removed, for any amount of time, leaves an ache, a need. The whole must be redefined in its absence, for there is no whole without each and every piece. And is it the same with life?

I have felt the whole of who I am, or who I will be. I have seen shadows of it in dreams and whispers of it in song. Still, I must wait for the pieces to be revealed. In order to experience this “who I will be,” old versions of myself must be washed away. 

Washed, such a passive word: scrubbed, scoured, and scraped away is more accurate. 

If we must use the word “washed” then this washing is the kind that occurs when the tide has pulled you under. Tumbling with the sand and shell, washing, the water taking hold and not letting go. Washing by thrashing, until your mind finds itself incapable of escape. It is by this means that I have been washed. 

Grasping for air, listening for the light, hoping for freedom, desperate to be released. For there is nothing in turmoil but to hope. So I hope that when I break through the wall of washing water I may rise to find myself full of life giving breath. 

This hope lifts my eyes. My strength reaches upward. Hope yearns toward the breakthrough. 

Then the moment comes. It happens, the turmoil subsides and, rising, I find my feet, firm and ready. 

Finding their path they move away from the abrading wash. Walking quickens because the old burdens were pulled away in receding water. Who I was, has fallen behind. To turn back or search for it in the depths, is not a choice. 

Hope raised me from the water. Now, on dry land, hope stirs my eyes to search for a new path, a new piece and renewal inside this freedom.