I had a barrier to my own healing for a long time and it has taken a while to chip away at that wall. I was chipping away though, I know that to be true. In a decade of journals there are some common themes - dreaming of a happy life, one clearly different than the one I was living; emotional weightiness; obsessive curiosity of thoughts and things unseen; “I am growing, I am learning”. All of that was necessary work that has led to actual holes in this wall, allowing me to finally see what is beyond.

What is beyond the wall? More walls. What the hell?? Where is the field of green pastures and Springtime? All that I hoped for does not exist “on the other side” of the wall that I’ve been trying to get behind me. No, but the chipping away is still necessary work to understand what’s next. From this work I have learned and grown, I am able to encounter my disappointment with emotional intelligence and experience. With more walls ahead of me, I have a choice to spend another season of my life beating and destructing what I am facing. But I know that this cycle never ends, at least not with this approach.

I look beyond the wall, and get a glimpse of the whole from above. This is no border wall at all, separating what was from what will be. This is a labyrinth. Choosing to make my life difficult with incessant chiseling seems so wasteful and destructive to my own healing now. I can instead walk this path and engage my posture of dreaming of what’s to come, I can exercise emotional depth and stretch my curiosity as I continue to grow and learn how to navigate these walls without fighting so hard to get through them.