So this Saturday I was washing my car...that within itself is deep and profound. Before surgery I gained quite a bit of weight and was tired all the time. My car was filthy and I mean F-I-L-T-H-Y. When I started the plan was wash, vacuum, and wipe down, but at each step I kept adding things. By the end it had been, wash the car(hand wash), buff the film off the headlights, spot shampoo, brush and clean carpet and seats, scrub console, spray amorall, wipe down windows and wipe amorall inside and out evenly. Close to the end I was cleaning the windows and wiping down the leather/plastic parts, a beautiful brown butterfly came by and lit on my finger. I shook my hand thinking it would fly away, but it just grasp tightly to my finger. It was such a beautiful and delicate thing. I didn't want to hurt it. I tried to nudge it off, I told it that despite my fingers smelling sweet and the bright colors I had on, I was not a flower. Finally I got it to climb off my finger and onto the sunroof. A few minutes later "she" was flying back down by my toes and the car door. I laughed and shooed her away. She kept flying around, landing on the door, my finger, the window. She just wouldn't go away. Eventually she flew into my car. I was changing sides and by the time I got to the other side, she had flown up to the sunroof. I pushed it back, forward and then had it open from the other side, but she kept flying behind the shade. I explained to her (as if she understood human language) that she needed to move on, and if she didn't she would ultimately die. I didn't want to damage her wings and I didn't want her to die in my car. We went back and forth. Finally she flew down away from the top and I moved her out with my hand. She fluttered around the car for a while. At some point she flew off.
I suspect you have an idea where I'm headed with this. I think we are much like butterflies in various areas of our lives. We stay in dead in jobs, wasting our time, talent and energy when it will lead us no where. There is no chance of promotion, no growth, and no potential to prepare us for something better. We flutter into relationships that are like that. They will never allow us to fully flap our wings and grow. Yet we flutter, attach and won't fly on. We do the same things with friends who don't have our best interest at heart. We shine for them, dance about them and support their dreams, but some not only don't support us, but actually bruise our wings.
I kept hearing that people change after you've had the weight loss surgery, but I disagree. I think after you make a major change in your life that can't help but alter the way you think and respond, YOU change. This of course forces those around you to change. Wouldn't it have been funny if the butterfly got in my car, and while I was coming around to the other side, it had hit the door locks, started the car and drove off? I would have been forced to do something different then what I had planned. Ok, it would have been amazing and not so funny to me. If you change how you think and act it forces those around you to either adapt or move on. I'm getting both, and I gotta tell yah its not always pretty, funny or amazing. I'm trying so damn hard to fly, flutter, and check out the flowers, but there are times I feel real guilty and want to fly back into the car just so others will feel comfortable. I know I can't, but its tempting. I feel myself disconnecting with people, I hear myself not giving folks the answers they want to hear, I see myself doing things that I see as best for me at that moment. Its funny, I thought that making decisions like that would make me happy...sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't. Lets go back to the butterfly. She had flown all across the yard (big yard) and was probably ready to rest, but my car or my finger were not the best places for her to rest. She could have resisted my overtures completely and found a nice comfy spot in my car to stop. It probably would have made her happy. Happy is a moment to moment thing. It comes and goes based on the situation. However, she took the hint and flew on. When she found a flower to rest on. There was probably food, drink and the wonderful fragrance of a real flower. I would dare say she was content. Hint: Content is better than happy. I wish I had spent more time on this before surgery, but I was busy being happy sitting on a fake or wannabe flower and eating food to squash my real desire to be content.
Content is definitely harder work and I think lonelier work, but I am betting the farm its worth it. So are you some place that your wings can reach their full span, you won't get bruised as you flutter around and is your soul getting real flower food? Yeah its scary and it may be a while before you find the right flower to land on, but you and I are such pretty butterflies and we all deserve to be content. Keep flying its out there.
: )
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