Reweaving

I have dreamed of being a writer for at least a decade, fantasized about what I could write and how it could impact others, longed to have my imaginary works read and appreciated. But something always stopped me before I ever really got started. No, not something, someone.

She said things like: “Who do you think you are?” “That’s indulgent.” “This is not real work.” “Someone else has already said it better.” “You are not qualified.” “You are not original enough.” “You should do something more productive.”

She spoke in such a subtle whisper, I didn’t fully register the words—I didn’t even question them. I accepted them blindly as the truth, as reality. It is strange how someone so quiet can be so commanding.

It is also strange how loud she got when I decided to go ahead and write despite my reservations. The whisper became a shout; I could hear her more clearly. I could actually see the web she had woven in my mind, how its threads touched every aspect of my life, how it trapped me.

The more I write, the more the threads begin to unravel.

Fears that hadn’t reached the surface of my awareness are now rising up.

The ways in which my past experiences have reinforced my self-imposed limits are becoming apparent.

The disconnection from my true self is laid out before me like a severed wire.

That is the ultimate cost of allowing her to weave her web, the web of my identity: being so wrapped up in it that I didn’t even realize it was cutting me from my lifeforce, my very essence.

But she only did it to protect me. She didn’t know she was causing harm. So I won’t violently hack at the web that has trapped me these many years. I will release the threads gently, slough them off my shoulders so I can step back and behold the beauty inherent in the well-spun web, the perfect order of it all.

From this place of appreciation I can begin anew. I can’t help but weave a web—it is what we do. But I can use different threads, ones that flow from the center of my being rather than my conditioning. And who knows, maybe she can help me do it.