The dynamic contour of a silhouette

 

Rare are those who would object to the truth that the only constant in life is change. Life in general, and everyone's existence in particular, is therefore dynamic and ever evolving. A cell, a body, a personality. It moves, and it also undergoes some reshaping. We can see this from one moment, one emotion, one opinion to the next, and from one picture of a younger version of oneself to a more mature one.

Even though I really like celebrating and decorating for Halloween, this is not why I included the picture above. Yes, it fits the seasonal theme, it is mysterious and almost looks like a witch costume. But I chose it mostly because these days, I am engrossed in trying to capture a phenomenon that really caught my attention yesterday morning (and again this morning) and that I don't think I have ever observed before (or not that I recall at least). It has something to do with making the invisible visible, or the way my body dissipated heat, making a part of it look like a mug of hot tea ! I am still at the preliminary phase of my ''data collection'', therefore I won't elaborate in this post about it yet, but I wanted to use this silhouette of myself to introduce the theme of this blog, which aims to examine the effects of time on a person.

Yesterday, on my Facebook, a memory from 10 years ago popped up. It was a profile picture. It startled me to realize that a decade had disappeared between then and now, but not the headband I was wearing back then nor the red t-shirt. So I decided to retake a similar picture, wearing the same stuff (the necklace got disassembled and I only had the bird pendant so I used another one, but I tried to place my hair and smile similarly). The setting (the house) is no longer the same, and the art books in the background were left behind, with my former life. Unlike the newer shot, I believe someone else took the older picture, since I was not ''selfying'' as much back then. And the lighting was most likely different, not reflecting accurately my actual skin tone, and giving the impression that my face is less sun kissed now that it truly is, so the back-to-back comparison won't be optimal. But despite these discrepancies, there is no doubt that a lot of me still looks like... me.

Many cells and my own self died countless times and regenerated during those 10 years. My mouth is still able to form a smile despite the unnamable sorrows, the many deaths endured between the birth and rebirth of this incessant birth-death-rebirth cycle. That is probably why my eyes look less candid today. During that decade, I survived an auto-immune condition, a toxic marriage, a pandemic, a traumatic divorce, a constant worry about my sons, moving three times, yearning for the dreams I thought were impermanent, lamenting over the leap between what has been and is no longer. I also experienced a lot of good things: as my love for my family and my worry of them deepened, I paradoxically faced and overcame my fear of death, I have made new friendships and deepened the ones I had, I developed programs for survivors of trauma, I wrote like I breathed and published a significant amount of work, I co-directed and acted in the Vagina Monologues, I became Professor, I ran a 10k, I discovered fabulous places and traveled the world with my beloved sons, I presented my creations at two art shows, I tamed technology (I created two blogs, launched my YouTube channel, started to co-host a podcast), and most importantly, I have survived and come back more enlightened and a bit wiser from the underworld. I reclaimed my freedom to be, feel, believe and create. And through precious and eye-opening relationships, I also reshaped my definition of love various times, and in the process, I learned to accept my flaws and celebrate my quirks a touch more, with humor, with you more (I still love playing with word and sound combinations. That, in 10 years, hasn't changed :) !).

The red of my shirt and headband is less vivid or a bit more worn out but the passion fueling my will is more ardent than ever. The proof is hidden somewhere in the picture of my silhouette taken on my deck during a sunny Saturday morning, and whatever has carried over from portrait of me at 40 to portrait of me at 50. 

I enjoyed going through the self-reflective exercise of making a soul inventory of this past decade. It was not really what I had planned to do this weekend. But, as we all know, life goes rarely as planned anyway. So, we might as well practice ''carpe diem'', welcome all of life as it is with curiosity and without judgment, and let the unexpected lead us on a path full of opportunities for insights and growth, if we choose to see every bit of experience as something pointing us in the direction of deeper self-awareness, self-knowledge, and healing through self-understanding, and immense gratitude for being able to tell the tale.