Grow Into My Own Tree
By LonesomeLeopard
I feel tired. Like everyone else I wanted so many wonderful things for this year (that shall not be named explicitly to avoid any further disastrous events). But I feel sad and shrunken. Especially tonight. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have a safe place to lay my head and plenty of food and water. I'm grateful. I'm lucky. I'm blessed. I'm privileged.
Please excuse me for talking about myself. I want to write here so that I can talk to myself in a healthier way. As I said earlier my expectations were not met. But then again I've always held unrealistic expectations.My mother says I've always been a dreamer. Even in my earlier years I never passed any of those logic tests. Because I was dreaming. I'm still dreaming but this year has revealed just how far I have left to making my dreams real. Tangible and definite, unlike the ideas that float in my mind. I've never made any money. I've never finished a real project. But I've started. I can face myself and all the empty rooms of my life and say I've started.
Maybe I'm rushing myself. Because I'm young. But the situation I grew up in made me age quickly. And this was the year I expected to find a means to leave the bad situation. That I would write my way out of this sad house.
OK I'll make it simple. Let's call the situation 'The Mango Situation'. My mother was a tree. My father was also a tree. Um... the trees did their cross pollination thing (remember, no logic here) to create a cute mango called me. And my brother I guess.
But the mango wants to drop down. I want to fling myself off my Mother's branches. But the ground below is not as fertile as promised. It is not barren either for it is a mix of toxic tar and warm grass. My Mother's roots have been severed through storm and drought. They have withstood axes and machetes. Only few remain. It never helped that my Father's branches constantly crashed into my Mother's branches. Sending me and my brother spiraling. So much so that to this day she struggles to transplant herself.
I'm scared of shriveling into a dried up forgotten mango pit. I'm also frightened of the winds and rain that continue to scatter my Mother's leaves. The wind and rain that threatens to carry me to places I've never been.
But wind and rain can nurture. Deep down I know that it is better to be lifted by rain and winds than to tumble into the painful sequencing of rotting. Of losing the shine on my rind. Of wasting away.
How do I harness my strengths? How do I latch onto the greatness of others that came before me? How do I grow into my own tree?
A response to the Now prompt