"What holds you back, Megan?"
Do you remember being a kid and pretending your bicycle was a motorbike, as you zoomed down the hill; "Look mom, no hands."**
It's this beautiful and sweet nativity that makes children fearless gods and goddess to be reckoned with. It's like a child is born bearing a shield of innocent ignorance that allows them to face the world without any thought of what lies ahead. Time is but an abstract notion only adults seem to get tangled in and consequences - what the hell are they?
But as we all know, too well and some more than others that the shield we are born with becomes tattered and worn after years of protecting us from the elements of life. As experiences pile up, it becomes harder and harder to ignore the responsibilities of time and consequence. Like archives in a museum, our experiences our ordered, filed away and retrieved when in need of a history lesson.
I feel like a history major.
Like Bart Simpson, Im stuck in detention rewriting sentences on a chalkboard; "Do not trust anyone. The system is broken and out to break you, to use you and abuse you.
Protect yourself.
No one comes in, no one gets close.
And you Megan, you stay put, behind these big barricades.
It's the story I've told myself a million times. It's been both a crutch and my broken leg.
Simply because:
THE BIGGEST INHIBITOR FOR MOVING FORWARD, IS FEAR OF THE FUTURE BASED ON THE PAST.
History is written and repeats itself so they say, but I think that's because we keep allowing ourselves to get caught up in the story.
Hurt, hurts and cuts do leave scars, but that doesn't we're doomed.
It can seem that life isn't always hopeful, but it's not hopeless either. And sometimes the default stories we tend to tell ourselves when we get hurt unintentionally hurt us more.
Its been nearly eight years, that this story has had the opportunity to ink another page. Eight years of watching others jump in the pool, while I stood, too scared to dip my toes in, in fear that the water would swallow me whole.
But now, this book is bound and the pages have been filled. And if you ask me what holds me back,
the only answer would be:
Me.
Original Photo Credit: eliztesch
