Stepping In

I hold myself back all the time. 

Sometimes, I’m holding myself back from myself, sometimes from my desires. Sometimes, I’m just holding myself back because I’m terrified of the power I could step into, or what I’ll find when I let go.

I think about letting go a lot. I’ve always been fascinated by Jean Grey from the X-Men comics. If I could be any superhero, it would be her, as troubled as she is by her power. Maybe I can’t move things with my mind, but something about having that expanse of power inside of us has always resonated with me.

We simply live within the walls built by society.

We are told that we should be these things and ought not do those things. We are regulated and indoctrinated with theories about wrong and right.

We are shamed into smallness.

Obviously, there are some things we cannot unleash. There is anger and rage and destruction that need to be directed in constructive ways.

But there’s always a darkness inside us. We may spend our lives running from it, or we many choose to contemplate it. What I’ve found is that the more I’ve sought to understand the darkness, the softer it becomes. It is not bad or evil. It does not make me, anymore than the light does.

So what are we made by? 

Is it our DNA? Our stories? The routines we live our lives by? Our deepest desires? The impulses we give in to? What we unleash when we are angry, or create when in love?

I’m listening to it all. And I don’t know what that will bring, but I’m done holding back. 

I’m witnessing the expanse of who I am, and I’m not containing it anymore simply because it may be judged.