As One Door Closes

As the winter season comes to an end, we welcome spring with arms wide open. The replenishing of our waterways, the fresh buds and blooms on abundant forms of vegetation we have, sunnier skies and warmer, longer days bring joy to us all. Much like the saying goes, "as one door closes, another opens," the changing of the seasons are a direct example of this but sometimes change isn't received as warmly as the example provided. Actually, a majority of us, by human nature are engineered to deal with change naturally, this is called adaptation, this is usually developed and mastered through months, years or even generations of learned behaviors, family/cultural values and the rapidly growing and changing world we live in. Change, on the other hand, is usually fought back against or sometimes just outright refused. This refusal to change has led us all to where we stand today, both personally and as the human race in full.

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Some may put change and adaptability in the same category or say they even go hand in hand and for most instances they most certainly do. I have always taken pride in my ability to adapt to any situation or surroundings, kind of like a human chameleon you could say. Today these feelings still ring true, but strangely instead of using this attribute of mine to just barely scrape by or narrowly navigating life on a tightrope, I actually feel like I'm starting to believe that it is no longer by chance, instead I actually think that this might truly be me. I'm no longer feeling like a part of a Future song, needing to "Mask Off" anymore, I feel like I was never actually wearing any masks. Every day that goes by, every person that I encounter or have encountered, every bit of knowledge downloaded to my brain, it's all starting to come together now. All this time I thought that I never knew who I was or am supposed to be, so I just "faked it until I made it" or so I thought.

I am beginning to believe that each one of those "masks" I was hiding behind, was really just a version of myself, and each version of myself exposed themselves for whatever reason at that time because it was needed. Today, I don't look at those as masks, I'm beginning to glue all the pieces together and see myself as one whole being instead of just being who you want me to be. All of this conversation is brought up by an onslaught of things happening in my life presently, but particularly with my education. Completing a degree in college is something I always felt was just too far out of reach for me. Not due to ability, but rather I felt there was this unmovable force around me, like a dense black fog. I was a firm believer of 2 steps forward and 5 backward. I now know that was just my ego self-sabotaging myself to keep me in this endless material life cycle that we are all stuck in. The best part of breaking through that fog and having some sort of breakthrough is that I am able to share it with my children and more importantly be living proof that anyone, if they put their minds to it, can achieve anything. My kids no longer look at me, the way I looked at my parent's when they told me the same thing when I was growing up after being told that, they look at me and see it and believe it. This is the greatest gift as a parent you could ever receive. If tragedy struck and I was no longer able to be in this physical world with them, I know that I've done all I could to better my kids' life and instill belief that they can do whatever they put their minds to. I get the pleasure to be inducted into the National Honor Society in 12 hours, and my kids are more excited to go to the ceremony than I am. Now, according to my kids I'm sigma, lol. Thank you all for being a part of my journey!