p r o g r e s s
When I was younger, I didn’t understand who I was and that was so incredibly frustrating to me.
Now that I’m years older, I understand that I’ll never really know who I am because I’m ever evolving. And I’m no longer frustrated. Every footstep towards the right or wrong direction, is an avenue to something greater. Some of us look for ourselves in other people, the new and old. Some of us look for our purpose in our studies, passions and careers. It’s not always black and white though. There’s a massive grey space, which has a Pantone scale of “grey” colors. But everywhere, within this mysterious grey, is a series of stories. And with each story I tell, there comes a new version of me.
With every chapter in my life, I develop a deeper understanding of who I want to be in the most difficult times. And with every chapter, I cherish the pages that have helped me continue to hope and dream; I’ve felt warmth in my blush during timid interactions, I’ve laughed until oxygen seized my body and I’ve felt the relief in my clouded mind when I finally let myself trust another soul.
Growing up, I had always referred personal and professional success as the metaphor of a seed that is planted and nurtured to grow into a flower. I would repeatedly question how many types of seeds I would need to search and care for to establish just that one flower to blossom. For just that one. How long it would take to find that seed and what I needed to do to find it. I finally realize how silly all of that is. To think I’m nothing but a small seed to begin with, because I’m already so much more than that, and more than a flower even—no matter how beautiful it is.
And now, I am sharing with you that you are not a seed, nor do you want to be a flower. You are a work of art. Something no one can replicate, something that’s always in progress, no matter how complete it appears.
I see it in my friends when they’re drunk texting me about an ex, my family when they’re asking me to call more often and strangers on the subway when they’re forcefully shutting their eyes and ears out to the rest of the world.
You are an individual, ceramic piece.
You are a piece of clay, being molded over and over again to create a design that’s balanced and appealing. Even when you think you’re complete with the smoothed out edges and polished —or rather completed with absolute certainty or safety, burned in the kindle. Dried to solidity. In any moment, you can be smashed, crumbled and placed back into a flood of water to return to be the soft, vulnerable clay that you were once before. But this time it’s okay, because there’s more sense of direction of knowing where the design flaw was a tad off and this time, because of last time, you’re mixed in with new clay (in this metaphor, could be the newer version of you added in, or new people you meet and have in your life). The clay will eventually get tougher with time and the new will always support the old.
My friends? Looking for validation from those they love because they’re not receiving it from who they’re thinking of. My family? Looking for reassurance they’ve done their rightful parental job in raising me. The strangers? Looking for an escape from the loud world around them on such a regular commute.
I don’t know when it’ll be time for the final glaze. I really don't. I don't know when you (and I) can be a piece of art, a part of a home and furnished with the other belongings. All I know is that you and I are capable and moldable. It'll just take rounds of floods and breaking to get there.
