The thing about molting is the process is never pretty.  There’s no way to heave and contract and wriggle and writhe to release an entire cloak of yourself and make it look good.  For us humans, the molting process is usually the center of some deep cathartic experience, also not usually pretty.  If you do it right, these experiences just involve you and some crying and maybe some soul searching while staring at the ocean and maybe (just maybe now) some whiskey or wine or cigarettes.  If you do it wrong, however, you can be a bit of a cockroach on its back, kicking and spinning and grossing everyone out around you.

It seems I’ve been molting for close to a year now.  And it’s had its highs and lows, to be sure.  Plenty of wine, whiskey, tattoos and cigarettes.  Oddly, also part of the process has involved a strange, unintentional shedding of jewelry.  Small symbolic tokens from my life that seem to be cascading from my body almost of their own free will.  If you don’t believe in signs or fate or whatever, this is sheer coincidence, of course.  The thing is, I looked in the mirror this morning and for the first time in years, I was naked of all my jewelry; all of it.  Actually, I was just completely naked.  The kind of naked that gives you pause because you’re actually looking at yourself in a way most of us don’t often do.  I had the horrifying realization that perhaps this process I’ve taken myself through may be hitting its zenith (or its death valley, depending on your perspective) and I have absolutely zero idea what’s on the other side.

No matter what you encounter in your life, it’s you you have to be most concerned with facing.  And what I’ve learned is we’re never 100% who we truly are to everyone all the time; something I’ve been fighting tooth and nail, probably to my detriment.  On this little journey of mine, how I address my unease with this concept will shape my path.  I haven’t recognized myself through much of this process.  But I’ve also seen a part of myself I want to pull up and cultivate and nurture.   Cockroach or not.