It’s becoming more and more apparent lately how difficult it is for me to make sense of all of my emotions. I have a lot of great things going for me right now—a job as a published author, my relationship with my family and friends and boyfriend, my classes are going fine—and yet with each of these good things, there is an equally horrible thing putting a damper on it, making it much harder to appreciate. I’m happy with my job and my classes, but the stresses of deadlines make it “work” and not “fun.” I’m not learning to acquire more knowledge and test my boundaries and explore the vastly infinite possibilities of the world, but for a critique, a letter, or a number. I’m happy with my boyfriend, but he’s deployed and I worry constantly, and I don’t get to talk to him at all for weeks. All of my happiness is shadowed by stress and worry, crippling anxiety. If only being alive didn’t come with the problems of being alive.
I sit underneath the same tree in the same field of the Old Post Quadrangle in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, but today, the past few days actually, it is changed. It was still 90 degrees in October, but all of a sudden it dropped to 50. I no longer see squirrels playfully chasing one another, testing their limits to see who can get as close to the human without being noticed. I no longer have to worry about the evil ants that don’t understand personal space and love inflicting pain on my bare feet and thighs. I no longer feel the dry, prickly grass on my skin because there’s no skin uncovered to feel it. The world here is slowly dying. Or going to sleep for a very long time, if you’re the less cynical type.
The winds have also picked up, as you would expect in Oklahoma. I’m experiencing for the first time what it’s like to have these high-speed gusts without tall buildings or lots of hills to break it. I watch the trees in front of me, old but strong. They’re being pushed so far I think they might snap, their branches flailing and thrashing with the blasts of air, their trunks clinging on for dear life. I hear these trees screaming in pain. High-pitched and slow and steady and constant.
I notice myself feeling a lot like these trees being forced to endure the terrifying windstorm. All my loose ends flailing and thrashing with my core self-grounded and clinging on for dear life, waiting for the never-ending chaos to indeed come to an end. And I realize, as I watch these trees go back to their original positions, as the latest gust passes and the world around me calms, that it’s not about “waiting for the storm to pass” or even “learning to dance in the rain.” It’s about learning to live with yourself and exist happily separate from the turmoil surrounding your core. Because at the end of the day, when the storm does pass, whether you learned to dance in the rain or not, you only have yourself. Sure, you may have other trees surrounding you to break your fall, you may have the ground beneath you to hold you tight, and catch one of your branches as it breaks off, but the most important part is your trunk and roots keeping you intact. The most important part of you is you.
