Renewal

An air of enigma surrounds the concept of change. It is understood as something monumental, with one leaving a time previously unfortunate and establishing a new frontier for themselves comprised of lessons learned from the old, alongside aspirations and demands for the new. However, nagging feelings also remain – feelings of guilt, of shame, and of wrongdoings in regard to everything that had gone wrong on their previous journey. What has happened has happened – people have been wronged, situations have been mishandled, and opportunities have been missed. One is powerless to change the past but can only be entrapped by feelings of encumberment and guilt. In this light, change seems like a convenient lifeboat, launching one from their burning ship onto a faraway shore, allowing them to slowly gather themselves and build something new.

And thus, amidst the whirlwind of thoughts, he stood, perched precariously at the edge of his ship, his steel gray eyes reflecting a mosaic of past regrets and the faint glimmer of an uncertain future. How easy would it be to untie the rope, to lower it into the deep, to let the lifeboat drift somewhere, anywhere, carrying the shell of a person who once had such hopes for new beginnings but had now been reduced to a mere shell of their former self!

It was at this moment of introspection, as the first drop of rain fell from the sky onto his pale complexion and tightly drawn expression, where a torrent subsequently followed, that a realization dawned upon him that all his past attempts at escape, each new beginning that he had seized with delight, had led him nowhere. Running in circles, believing that changing his surroundings would change his inner turmoil, had caused him to give in to the temptation to flee so many times before; it was like a siren song, gently luring him into the comfort of a new beginning.

His life had been a series of swift departures: leaving schools where he had made enemies with one person, abandoning jobs where the walls echoed his unmet potential, and hopping from one relationship to another, each one being a temporary relief for his inadequacies, yet never healing the underlying wounds. He told himself that each time would be different, that the new meant a clean slate, an unspoiled chance for him to desperately re-attempt whatever had gone wrong. But he was the same person, with the same unresolved issues, no matter how far he ran. The past he tried to bury grew like a persistent tree, breaking through the layers of sand he had hastily scattered over its seeds.

The roots of that tree, the essence of who he was, were inescapable; they ignored his futile attempts at escape and strangled him tighter after each superficial change. He briefly recalled one of his prior attempts to live a fictitious life of prosperity, a life of someone he was not and would never be, and caught himself twisting and twirling his fingers, a nervous habit he could never quite quit. Back then, he had painstakingly fabricated a lie, down to the minute details, to convince his newfound wealthy friends that he had, in fact, been the child of a prosperous businessman but that his father had died due to ‘unforeseen circumstances,’ and had, conveniently, left him no inheritance.

The shame of that exposure, the unraveling of a lie so intricately woven, should have served as a cautionary tale, bringing to mind that however much one tries, the sand would sift, erode, and corrupt, revealing the sprawling tree underneath. Instead, it became yet another chapter in the book of his escapes, another example of his willpower's misguided applications. Eyes moist, hands clenched, and mind racing, he had relived similar experiences, experiences that caused him to writhe in shame and had made him wonder why willpower fell short in silencing the relentless dialogue of the mind. But he had missed the most critical sphere of contemplation– what must be changed within himself, what struggles must be acknowledged and addressed internally, what obstacles must be uprooted and cut down instead of piling yet more sand on top.

In striving for change, he had been building with the bricks of the old, each layer tinged with bitterness and resentment, a structure bristling with the sharp edges of his past failures. But he saw, on that fateful night on the edge of the boat, that the relentless pursuit of new horizons as a means of escape had been nothing more than a mirage. The lifeboat beneath him, once a symbol of freedom and fresh starts, now appeared to him as a vessel of perpetual flight, destined to sail in endless circles.

As the rain intensified, each drop resonating upon the wooden deck like beads of truth he could no longer ignore, he realized that the true journey lay not across the expanse of the sea but within the confines of his own heart. Change, as he began to understand, was not about concealing the past or adorning oneself with a facade of reinvention. It was about looking forward while coming to terms with one’s previous mistakes, reflecting deep within themselves so that they can accept and forgive, and ultimately inciting the innate change that they so desperately desire.

In that moment of clarity, the skies above mirrored his revelation, parting briefly to reveal a solitary star, a beacon amidst the tempest of his thoughts. With a breath, he turned back, heart pounding, his gray eyes softening as they filled with resolve. He would no longer seek to escape from the ship– his life– that bore the scars of his past. Instead, he would steer it, navigate through the waters with a heart no longer weighed down by shame but buoyed by the prospect of true change, marking not just a new chapter in a life, but the emergence of a new relationship with oneself, where every step forward is illuminated by the learned lessons of the past, guiding the way towards a future of hope and newfound purpose.