On gifts

Perspective is the gift that patience grants.

Climbing up I see nothing but my nose against the rock. It’s when I reach a plateau and turn around that I’m astonished by the view. The landscape that was surrounding me all along is now mine to take in. I am not alone and alienated anymore. I am a part of it.

That’s when pride comes. The kind of pride that’s like blushing, starting deep within and rising all the way to my cheeks. Not something that can be willed into existence. It just comes as a gift. From myself and from truth.

So here I am. Seated high up on the mountainside. Sweaty but beaming. Nowhere near a sense of having arrived and yet completely immersed in being somewhere I have never been before.

Looking back on the handful of posts I wrote this year, I can hear the cost of the journey. The oozing of pain. The silence of withdrawal. The blankness of the labor. I see myself getting there, even if at the time it felt like sinking into quicksand.

I can now see what I’ve done because I can see where it took me. Sticking with something is a powerful way to travel. I held on to my job. I braved my past. I weathered the triggers. I stuck with it. I did it because I could. I had to because I could.

That’s how I know I am meant to do something. Because I can. It’s shitty logic or it’s pure logic. Either way, it’s how I collapse the paradox of destiny and will. Which is another gift if you ask me.

I’ve been having this magical experience lately. I will be in the middle of whatever when this thing occurs to me. I like the person I have become. Through everything that’s ever happened to me. In all the ways I have failed and succeeded. Breakthroughs and breakdowns. From feeling like I don’t exist to trying to destroy myself to looking in the mirror and embracing what I see. It’s a process alright. But here I am. I can say it without cringing. Without faking it. I like myself. It’s in my bones and in my blood now. It’s a tool of freedom. A quiet power. And it’s definitely the greatest gift ever.