G is for Growth

I wonder why growth is often so painful. Why, as humans, do we insist that we cannot grow when things are stable and we're, well... happy or at least content? Why is the saying "the pain of staying has to exceed the pain of leaving" before we chose to alter our existence so impossibly true? Are we naturally stubborn? Is safety so very important to us? Why can't change knock on the door and we simply say, "ok, let me go pack for the journey" and we enter the next adventure with the desire to meet the challenge head on?

I am a Gemini, and as a mutable astrological sign, I ordinarily enjoy change and have been known to seek out change simply for the sake of change... but when it's thrust upon me... I fight like a wild cat dipped in water. I have also been known to subconsciously create chaos or sabotage myself in order to force change into my life... to knock down with force that ivory tower I had been living in. And I always bring in the big guns... it's no bulldozer for me. No sirree... I employ dynamite to destroy my tower. Apparently I want no option of returning to that place once I've left. Under those circumstances... I don't like it. I don't like it at all. In those periods, I feel as though instead of building bridges, I'm burning them as soon as I cross them. Perhaps I'm intentionally, though subconsciously, ensuring that I am unable to ever go back. That that option simply doesn't exist. Lately, I feel as though I have a ginormous bonfire behind me.

There is lots of change happening in my world right now. I feel as though I'm standing on broken, slate rock and every move is a perilous risk that could result in a broken leg. Each move I make could be stable footing or a long and painful slide into a place I don't want to be. In some ways, it creates a fear of moving at all... but I know I can't just stand there waiting because the earth has started to rumble beneath me. And I'll be forced to take action no matter what.

What scares me is the path ahead. I can't see it clearly. I long for a hand to hold but find that I am alone. But perhaps that is also part of this period of growth.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly."          -Richard Bach

 "If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies."          -Author Unknown

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”                   -Maya Angelou