CRACKING UP

Have I changed?

I don't know. I guess I've always felt it inside me. Somewhere. There was this part of me that stirred sometimes but I couldn't put my finger on where it was coming from. Every time it stirred, it felt a little more specific. Like getting sensation back after nerve damage. At first, there's nothing, then maybe you can feel a touch but the location is vague, but eventually as healing takes over, you start to realize where the touch is coming from. It was like that. I went from thinking I was where I was supposed to be to feeling that I was not. Really, I just went from thinking to feeling. I stopped trying to trick myself into accepting what I had and tell myself it was enough for me. I started listening to that something that was stirring inside of me, asking for more. Asking to be let out. Asking to be accepted. At the time, I didn't even realize that something was me.

I wanted more. I wanted to be let out. I wanted to be accepted.

Breaking out of a mask like that isn't easy. It was solid and well-built. It had cracks, but still needed a lot of pressure from the inside to start really coming apart. Little by little, the pieces started to fall and when they hit the ground, they shattered. The noise was so alarming sometimes that I was caught off guard, frightened, tempted to stop. Preserve what was left. But what good is half of a facade?

The feeling of fresh air on my skin is amazing. Turns out it was stuffy inside that mask. And that stirring? It has turned into full freedom of motion. I'm no longer limited by the thick porcelain walls of the doll I had so carefully become to protect myself from the vulnerability of soft flesh.

And the freedom... the freedom is both exhilarating and terrifying.