“Trees grow in a certain direction, you know? They depend on things like sunlight and water to tell them where to go. Where they’ll thrive. Where they’ll survive. It’s like I’ve been lacking that. I want it. I need it. But I’m clueless.”
He tilted his head and nodded in that way that assures me I’m not rambling like a crazed idiot. “I’m imagining you as some sort of hydroponic planet. On a space station. Roots and branches splayed out in every direction.”
“I think I’ve been trying to impose gravity on myself. To put the sun in one direction and the ground in another, but I just don’t really know how. But that’s comforting. Because that’s circumstantial, that’s about boundaries and focus, not something that’s wrong with me.”
“It’s a perfectly good plant. And it’s surviving. It’s just not really doing what plants know they’re supposed to do.”
“Exactly.” My breath steadied and I locked eyes with him across the room. “Exactly.”
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with me. Though my whole life I’ve thought that there was something broken inside of that needed fixing. An obvious flaw that must be sought out and repaired before we can get anywhere. But I’ve been going about it all the wrong way. All the questions I’ve been asking have been centered on the underlying assumption that I was the problem, that seeking out the issue inside me and tending to it would solve everything. But we’re learning how to go bigger than that. How to ask the questions without the assumptions guiding the answers.
That changes everything. All that prodding for direction, asking for the things I need, pushing forward is up in the air now. A completely new focus takes hold hard, an understanding that these are the things I’ve been wondering about since I was a kid. Wanting desperately to find which way to grow, but never having a solid frame of reference. Never being told there was a certain direction I was best suited for.
We can grow anywhere. We can do anything. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t places we will do better. Weeds can grow in between the cracks of sidewalks, but if you want to grow a big, solid tree you go out into the woods and plant the seed. Clear directions and defined lines. No matter how you grow, though, there is nothing wrong with you. You’re just doing the best you know how to.
Comfort lies in that realization. Comfort like putting your feet in the dirt for the first time in your life. Comfort like coming down. A leaf that has spent it’s whole life dreaming about breaking free and finally touching ground.
