Peace and quiet
Apr. 3rd, 2015 23:22![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillOn my drive home tonight, I realized I was feeling something unfamiliar. It was a deep contentment.
I've been content before, when things have gone right, but not quite like this. There was no sense of relief, no hunger for excitement, no "what's next?", no sense that I could take up my shield again and continue the struggle. There was no struggle left. There was a slight happiness at how the evening had gone, and quiet, and a very deep peace.
That sense of stillness, when I've had it before, has always had the feeling of a lull in the storm. This was much more enduring. I had finally come to rest. It wasn't a perfect calm; I could feel little jagged bits at various places on the way down, little things which weren't quite right yet. But it was as though the black well at my core which I had dreaded for so long had finally emptied, and it had become as quiet and still as only water underground can be.
This was the first time in my life I didn't feel like a square peg striving to get into a round hole. I fit. I fit comfortably, without distortion or conflict, without having to compromise on which pieces of myself I get to keep. As I explore who I am, and accept the various pieces of myself in the configuration they take on naturally, I've found that I finally fit in my own life. I had always thought it was the other way around, that one had to adapt to circumstance -- but it feels very much like now I have stopped trying to alter or hide or contort myself, the rest of the world has molded to accommodate me.
I'm not quite finished yet, as the jagged corners can attest; there's still more to learn and change to suit my needs. I don't know what the finished shape is going to be. But I suddenly feel like I have elbow room, like the space can accommodate whatever shape I settle into. I don't have to struggle to be the right person, whoever that is at the time. I don't have to adapt myself to what I think I need to be. I'll still need to be agile, to pivot, to work with what's available and find my own solutions -- but that doesn't have to change *me*. I have understood for years that one should not strive to change to satisfy a partner, but I've never before felt that I didn't have to change in order to succeed in my own life.
I've come to rest. I'm done with the itchy restless hunt to figure out where I belong. I'm no longer worried about finding "my people" so that I can have a clan to be part of. I'll still seek out good people, but I don't need them in order to fit in. They can come and surround the space I fit into.
Who I am doesn't match any vision I've ever had of what I would be like; it doesn't resemble anyone else I've ever known. Yet this is who I've always been, in some way. There is power in that... and apparently there is peace, too.
I've been content before, when things have gone right, but not quite like this. There was no sense of relief, no hunger for excitement, no "what's next?", no sense that I could take up my shield again and continue the struggle. There was no struggle left. There was a slight happiness at how the evening had gone, and quiet, and a very deep peace.
That sense of stillness, when I've had it before, has always had the feeling of a lull in the storm. This was much more enduring. I had finally come to rest. It wasn't a perfect calm; I could feel little jagged bits at various places on the way down, little things which weren't quite right yet. But it was as though the black well at my core which I had dreaded for so long had finally emptied, and it had become as quiet and still as only water underground can be.
This was the first time in my life I didn't feel like a square peg striving to get into a round hole. I fit. I fit comfortably, without distortion or conflict, without having to compromise on which pieces of myself I get to keep. As I explore who I am, and accept the various pieces of myself in the configuration they take on naturally, I've found that I finally fit in my own life. I had always thought it was the other way around, that one had to adapt to circumstance -- but it feels very much like now I have stopped trying to alter or hide or contort myself, the rest of the world has molded to accommodate me.
I'm not quite finished yet, as the jagged corners can attest; there's still more to learn and change to suit my needs. I don't know what the finished shape is going to be. But I suddenly feel like I have elbow room, like the space can accommodate whatever shape I settle into. I don't have to struggle to be the right person, whoever that is at the time. I don't have to adapt myself to what I think I need to be. I'll still need to be agile, to pivot, to work with what's available and find my own solutions -- but that doesn't have to change *me*. I have understood for years that one should not strive to change to satisfy a partner, but I've never before felt that I didn't have to change in order to succeed in my own life.
I've come to rest. I'm done with the itchy restless hunt to figure out where I belong. I'm no longer worried about finding "my people" so that I can have a clan to be part of. I'll still seek out good people, but I don't need them in order to fit in. They can come and surround the space I fit into.
Who I am doesn't match any vision I've ever had of what I would be like; it doesn't resemble anyone else I've ever known. Yet this is who I've always been, in some way. There is power in that... and apparently there is peace, too.
no subject
Date: 2015-04-08 21:27 (UTC)Good job. ;)