Shifting Ground

"who we might be in this moment is only a fraction of the possibilities of the person we may become"

https://todaywasmeaningful.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/because-im-not-who-i-used-to-be/

People who have only recently entered my life often think that the way I am today is the way I've always been. That somehow I didn't have to work at the person I've become. It's only those who have been by my side day in and day out for a decade or two that truly have seen the transformation take place. Occasionally we'll muse over who has changed the most, and who has stayed the same. There is so much defensiveness about both outcomes. What is it about being told we've changed and being told we've stayed the same that scares us?

Is it that change means we may not hold the same love for the people in our lives? That it might make us choose between our future and our past? Does it mean that we are only temporarily us and that perhaps who we were is someone unrecognizable? Is there a fear of changing to the point of no return? That those around you will see your change as a point of no return? 

But if we stay the same does that mean we have shut ourselves off from growth? That those around us who have changed are leaving us behind without a second glance? That we can't keep up? Does it scare us to think what growth we have had isn't seen by anyone but us? 

So when we do change, do we do it for ourselves? Do we change for others? Does the world around us shift and we are left scrambling to keep up? What about those moments when we have no choice? Perhaps we've chosen our situation-- to leave the country, to go to the retreat, to leave a friend, to fall in love with the person you aren't supposed to-- but we were unprepared for the outcome that would knock the wind out of us, begin to swallow us into darkness, and give us no choice but to take a step forward, or cease to exist. Or the moments we tried to stop with all of our might, but like a train plowing down the tracks, our tiny existance had no power over the monumental shift in our selves. 

And yet. There are those moments. When we make the choice. When we open ourselves up to the possibilities. When we know, tomorrow, we can be better.

Tomorrow, I can be better. 

This is what pushes me, each day, to look for the next step in my personal evolution. In my personal revolution. Each person, relationship, community, cause, has potential. And in knowing that. In deciding that potential exists, we decide that changing ourselves is the first step to changing the world. 

Tomorrow, I can be better. I can look back on the person I was and see the pieces of myself that I have left behind, but still carry a memory of. and I know that what has replaced those parts, what those parts have evolved into, is well worth the cost. The cost of a change in values, new goals, and shifting love. To know that it is in those moments when I am hurtling towards the earth, desperate for grounding, grieving the heights I fell from, the space for change is opening, and I am ready to meet my next potential. 

Because I know that tomorrow, I can be better.