Holy Metaphor Eric Carle

Sometimes the strangest (or not so strange but totally deep) thoughts come to my head...and while I may let them "flutter" around for awhile, eventually they must come out. So since forever (really 10th grade, so ummm....16 years or so) I have linked my dad to butterflies. If you know me, you know at one time it was a mild obsession, and i would grab any butterfly related object...I am not really sure why exactly I equated butterflies and my dad. But ever since I did, they brought a sense of calmness to my environment. Leading me to tramp stamp one on my back (more to come on that later...remember all my thoughts, while essentially random, do relate back to one another)

....did i ever mention how my whining/dying dog stifles my creative writing, and while I think I'm a selfish, heartless bitch for typing that part, its still true...so he just drug his ass (literally) over here so I could pick him up...will do, his days are numbered, and while that too makes me a little sad, I am not sure about his quality of life these days...but I need two hands to type Max!

Where is this metaphor you speak of? Okay, it sounds dumb when I say it aloud, but I am sure when I explain it...the deepness will be overpowering (or not)...I am the very hungry caterpillar....totally, awesome right...okay, not so much, but let me go on with my explanation, and maybe I can get some help refining my big statement!

"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf"

On Sunday morning the warm sun came up, and POP, out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar. He went to look for some food."

Caterpillars survive on instinct. There is no mommy and daddy butterflies leading them through the obstacles of life, they don't run (or scoot, or inch) their way to a parental figure to get comfort when something bad happens. And that is how I view my childhood. Okay, so my mom was not a complete cold and evil bitch, only sometimes. But when it came to emotions and figuring stuff out, she wanted us to learn on our own, to figure it out based on previous experiences, on instinct. She trusted (i think) that we were given the essentials to make the appropriate decisions in life that would lead us down a respectable path. She said she would never be mad at our decisions (ummm okay mom) but we "disappointed" her when she didn't like what we did or how things turned out, b/c in the end it was our decision...and maybe that's were I get my issues with disappointment..my psycho analysis is pretty damn amazing!

My "food" was emotion. I was always full of it and never had enough. I guess in a way I am still that way. I was always over reacting to little things, under reacting to the big stuff, and all the time looking and hoping for someone to show me the emotion i was feeling. I always felt out of place, out of sync, out in the cold, and in the dark. I was never good enough to be the best, but then again, i never tried all that hard....fear of disappointment...pretty sure.

So as the tiny caterpillar ate, and ate and ate....I did too. And as I took in all the emotion, I stopped expelling it and just held it in....never hold it in...that goes for poop too!!

"He wasn't hungry anymore, and he wasn't a tiny caterpillar. He was a big, fat caterpillar." My emotional binge and purge hit its peek when my dad died, I could not handle any more emotion. At that time, I had no outlets, no one to talk to, so emotional purging was not an option...I am an excellent emotional bulimic these days....So with no where to put it, I shut down.

"he built a small house, called a cocoon, (Ps. Eric Carle...wish you would have said chrysalis)around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks."

Two weeks, two months, two years...twelve years...who knows, but I think I slowly started to nibble out, and as light hits the butterfly little by little, I started to feel again. I let things affect me. I feel more resilient, more reliant, and I really don't care about how others view me (most of the time). The process and change that turns a caterpillar into a butterfly is pretty amazing, it has to completely redefine itself. And while that pupa is "in between" it has time to get its act together...now there is no way I have my "act together" but i think I am pretty much all one piece. It takes me some time to get it all ironed out, but pump enough fluids into my wings, dry me out and I'm good to go...

" I am a beautiful butterfly" (thank you Heimlich from A Bug's Life...) "I am flying and from way up here you all look like little ants"

Not sure if I am complete "a butterfly", but I am on my way I guess...It makes sense to me now. And like all things in nature, nothing ever stays the same. I was thinking about this in the shower, about what is the most sturdy, strongest thing I can think of in nature. A rock came to my mind, but if put under enough pressure and heat, that rock can change too...There is always a way to make something change and little to prevent things from ever changing, just depends on how fast you want the process to happen...

Which leads me to the question: Can you make people change? So many times we hear people say "ah, they'll never change". Maybe you are not applying enough heat and pressure? Maybe there is not enough internal "hormone" to cause it to change...but really find me something that NEVER changes...

Maybe that's why I am always attracted to things that change. The ocean (love oceans, not a big fan of lakes....sure lakes can change, but not as often as oceans), I have had a minor obsession with drawing trees, mostly deciduous, and there is usually a lady in the trunk...Why? b/c to make it through the winter, these trees have to loose all their beauty, drop their leaves, just to survive. And once they get enough sunlight, they begin to grow again...maybe that's me too on some level.

Leading me back to the tattoo...A butterfly on my lower back. Yes, I have a tramp stamp...luckily it holds a wealth of meaning (see above) and when I got it, I was not as clear on its pure meaning, when I got it, it was b/c butterflies made me happy and reminded me of my dad. So now I want to add to it, modify the design maybe, but make it more of a representation of how I view it as a symbol for my life...essentially i would have all the stages, but I want to avoid having it look like a page out of a science text book. In my perfect world (and thanks to a dream that was inspired by the cover of "the girl with a dragon tattoo" and maybe Angelina Jolie) I would have a tree up one side of my back...holy cow that HUGE....and in my head its badass, but could I pull it off?? of course, the tree would show its change from winter, to spring, to summer then to fall.....Thankfully I have some tattoo artists in my family....but the planning to make it happen is a little overwhelming.

So that was my purge today....maybe I should change my blog to "emotional bulimia starts here"